


Of Chaos and How to Control It

by suhossineun



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - MAMA Powers, Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Bisexual Female Character, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Eating Disorders, Established Relationship, Female Kim Joonmyun | Suho, Female Park Chanyeol, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Injury, Magical Accidents, Medication, Mental Health Issues, Multi, Polyamory, Recovery, Self-Discovery, Shamanism, Slice of Life, Threesome - F/F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-12
Updated: 2018-03-06
Packaged: 2019-03-04 00:23:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 45,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13352604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suhossineun/pseuds/suhossineun
Summary: It feels like she’s completely wired with it, buzzing all the way to her fingertips. It’s a strange kind of tension, like a storm brewing, yet she doesn’t have it in her to feel anxious about it. It feels good, it feels right, to be filled with it to the brim. She has never experienced this kind of surge in energy, but she figures that this must be how life without mental health illnesses must feel like.It’s the most logical explanation, but it isn’t the correct one.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So to get the obvious thing out of the way- yes, Junmyeon/Junhee and Chanyeol/Chanmi are both girls in this story. I have no other reason except the fact I wanted to write them as such and because girl!exo has been something I've wanted to write for a long time, I decided to just go for it this time. 
> 
> Also a word of warning about the eating disorder stuff. While Junhee's struggles with food and her weight are primarily in the past, I do understand that to some of us even the slight mention of these things can be triggering. So just be aware that while these problems are not necessarily current ones, they are referenced quite a bit for reasons that you will understand as this fic goes on. 
> 
> I'm an eating disorder sufferer myself and that is where I take my knowledge of it. I understand that some might have a completely different experience with it and can't relate to Junhee at all, but please don't try to discredit my very real struggle with food, self image and my weight. 
> 
> With the more serious stuff out of the way, I hope you enjoy reading this story and join me for this journey! Follow me on twitter at @suhossineun to chitchat and to read my silly twt fics as well while you wait for updates on this one.

“Junhee, it’s time to wake up.” 

There’s a gentle nudge to her shoulder over the covers, but Junhee shies away from it, curling up even smaller. She has never been an early bird, and she absolutely hates waking up at the crack of dawn- even when she’s being woken up this gently and lovingly. 

“Just five more minutes,” she whines, turning her face to hide in her pillow so that the light streaming through the windows wouldn’t force her into alertness. She knows she’s fighting a losing battle, but that doesn’t mean she won’t try. Just because it has never worked on Kyungsoo before, doesn’t mean it couldn’t work on him now. 

“C’mon, you’re going to be late if I give you five more minutes. It’s breakfast time, darling. The coffee is getting cold as we speak.” Kyungsoo peels off the covers despite Junhee’s whines of protest, although he does make up for it with a gentle kiss on her temple. He’s very much used to his girlfriend’s antics, and not easily swayed no matter how cutely Junhee tries to act. It still works on Chanmi though- but unfortunately Chanmi is not in charge of the morning routines.

With a disgruntled pout, Junhee pushes herself up into a sitting position, and stretches out her arms with a sigh. She’d love to sleep in, but work doesn’t wait, and Kyungsoo is right. She’s maximized her sleeping time, and if she stays in bed any longer, she’s going to be running late. It would be more stressful than the sleep would be worth, which is the conclusion she comes to every single morning.

“Good girl.” Kyungsoo pats her tangled hair. “Let’s go, we can’t keep Chanmi waiting.” 

They walk out of the bedroom together and enter the kitchen, Junhee trailing behind Kyungsoo while she tries to get the elastic out of her hair so she could put it back up in a bun more neatly. Sometimes she really envies Chanmi’s cute, short bob so much- it would make life so much easier, even if deep down she knows she could never chop off her long hair, it’s too precious to her. 

Chanmi is already sitting down at the table, slowly making her way through her breakfast of rice and fish. Chanmi and Kyungsoo both enjoy the traditional, warm breakfast every morning, which to Junhee is so domestic and nostalgic to see even if she doesn’t eat it herself. She goes to give her a kiss on the cheek, mindful of her morning breath, before going to get herself a cup of coffee from the coffee pot. 

Meanwhile, Kyungsoo gets started on her breakfast. It has been his duty, his task for almost six months now, and he takes it very seriously. He prepares Junhee the same breakfast every morning, yet he always does it with just as much care, still using the exact measurements for the smoothie that he has printed out on a sheet of paper and taped to the cabinet door. He measures the protein powder, the almond milk, the peanut butter, the frozen fruit and berries to a tee, even uses a measuring spoon to get the amount of honey just right. He could probably do this eyes closed by now, but he knows that it’s important to Junhee that it’s all measured right. Not too much, not too little. 

If Junhee were to do the measurements, it would always be on the side of not enough. She would cheat- which is why Kyungsoo has to do it for her.

Junhee gets her coffee and sits down next to Chanmi, as Kyungsoo pulses the smoothie in the blender until it’s ready, and pours it out into a glass for her, even garnishes the whole thing with berries before bringing it to Junhee. This is her breakfast almost every single morning, but she honestly hasn’t tired of it yet- it’s tasty, just on the right side of sweet, and easy to eat even though her appetite is not the best in the mornings. There should be no excuses to skip meals, the words ring through her mind as she digs in with a spoon. 

Breakfast is a quiet matter, all of them still sleepy, but what’s important is not the conversation but the fact that they’re together. Chanmi in particular values their shared meals together, and Kyungsoo and Junhee do their best to make sure she gets to have that. They’re all busy, but they should have this much time to spend together, to sit down and eat together like a real family.

Admittedly, meal times used to be stressful for all three of them, but at least that’s in the past now. Junhee has sworn to herself to never allow that to happen again, for the sake of her boyfriend and girlfriend. 

The rest of the morning is just following the familiar routine; putting the dishes in the sink to soak since none of them have the time to do them right now, before they take turns showering or washing their faces in the bathroom, and then getting dressed in the bedroom. The apartment is a bit cramped for all three of them, what with Chanmi’s instruments, Junhee’s manhwa collection and Kyungsoo’s movies, but they move around each other seamlessly, effortlessly. They’ve shared this apartment for over a year now, so it has all become an easy routine, a choreography of sorts to follow. Chanmi towers over both of them but uses that to her advantage, helping Junhee fix her hair or kissing Kyungsoo’s forehead when she walks by.

It’s so busy, for the forty-five minutes they need to get ready, Junhee and Chanmi passing each other makeup items and such while Kyungsoo helps them find every item they’ve misplaced. “What would we do without you,” Chanmi sighs, as she does almost every morning, kissing Kyungsoo in thanks when he brings her the shorts she was looking for.

“Probably wear the same clothes every day for two weeks straight, because you couldn’t find anything else in this chaos,” Kyungsoo replies dryly, although the glint of humor is evident in his eyes. Despite the work he has to do for them, Kyungsoo loves his girls- Chanmi and Junhee both know as much. 

Chanmi and Kyungsoo both kiss her goodbye at the door, because Junhee needs to leave first to catch her bus. “Don’t forget your doctor’s appointment later today,” Kyungsoo reminds him as he double checks Junhee took her packed lunch with her. “I’ll call you, alright?”

“I’ll call you too,” Chanmi promises, pressing a kiss on the tip of Junhee’s nose. “So don’t worry about it too much, alright?”

“I won’t, I won’t,” Junhee promises with a smile, before she’s out the door. 

The work day isn’t too busy, which she’s grateful for. She works at an optical store, handling customers and helping them with picking out the frames they want, and taking care of shipments and whatever office work there is to be done. The two opticians who also own the store don’t like coming to the front of the store, so it’s Junhee’s territory and responsibility to take care of everything there. It’s quite an easy job, because it’s hardly ever truly busy in there, but she likes it that way. She couldn’t handle a high stress environment, so this is just perfect for her. It also helps that her employers and colleagues are very flexible and kind, so she doesn’t have to worry too much about leaving early to get to her doctor’s appointment. 

The appointment does make her nervous, though. She has been going to the same clinic ever since she started her journey of recovery and she trusts her doctor and her therapist, but going in is never an easy task. It always makes her anxiety spike up, and she would most likely not go in if it wasn’t for Chanmi and Kyungsoo making sure she does through texts, voice messages, and phone calls. 

The reception is empty when she arrives, and the lady working behind the counter promises her that her doctor will see her shortly. Junhee simply nods in reply, and settles in the furthest corner to text her group chat with Kyungsoo and Chanmi to send them a picture of herself sitting at the clinic reception as proof that she made it. She tries her best not to take out her anxiety on her fingernails, although it’s really hard to resist the urge to bite or pick at them.

Doctor Kim is kind as always when he greets her. Kyungsoo searched high and low for a doctor specialized in these issues that Junhee was comfortable with, to find someone who wouldn’t put her down or ignore her when she opens up about her condition. It wasn’t easy, and doctor Kim’s clinic isn’t cheap, but Chanmi and Kyungsoo both insisted that if this is what it took to get Junhee healthy, the price tag did not matter. 

On her bad days, Junhee still feels bad about it regardless. 

The first part is always the same routine. Junhee gets weighed while she keeps her eyes closed to not see the number on the scale, and then doctor Kim checks her blood pressure and things like that. He makes idle small talk with her as he does it, so the silence doesn’t bear too heavy on her, which Junhee can appreciate. She’s too nervous to be her usual bubbly and sociable self, but she hopes that doctor Kim doesn’t mind. She’s not here to make a good impression- the purpose of these visits is not to be charming, but be honest. 

The truth about her illness has never been a pretty one. 

“So, how has your mood been like lately?” doctor Kim asks after Junhee has buttoned her shirt up again. “Last time you were here you said you were feeling a lot better. No more tremendous downs, you said.”

Junhee nods, her curls bouncing up and down. “Yes, that’s still true. The lows have gotten easier, and I have more and more just… ordinary days. Days where I’m just fine. The bad days still come and go but, it’s never as bad as it used to be.” 

Doctor Kim writes something down in his notes before looking up again. “And that didn’t change even after we made your doses smaller? That didn’t hinder your progress?” 

“No, it all stayed the same.” Junhee smiles, genuinely pleased about it. She’s never been a big fan of the anti-depressants, because of the side effects they’ve had on her. She’s kept taking them because she could tell they were helping with the emotional side, but it was never pleasant. The fact that she’s been able to take these steps to wean herself off of them has her over the moon.

“I’m glad to hear that. How’s the meal plan working for you? Are you finding it easy to follow, or are you still struggling with something? Any foods you still feel hesitant or reluctant to eat? Any thoughts about going back to restricting?” 

Junhee rubs the nape of her neck guiltily. She knows that by now, she’s supposed to be in full charge of her meal plan, not Kyungsoo. But this has been working so well, and she would hate to take steps back just because she tried to push herself too far too soon. Both her girlfriend and boyfriend agree with that sentiment. 

“It’s working alright, we’ve found the things that work the best for me. My boyfriend still helps me with measuring and preparing food but, honestly, he’s in charge of cooking anyway so it’s not probably going to change. I’m a terrible cook.” She laughs softly, twirls a strand of hair around her finger. “But I’m eating pretty much freely now. I’ve conquered almost all of my food fears, too. I do sometimes think about restricting, like, the thoughts are always in my head, I’m always checking myself out in reflections and things, but I always mindfully push those thoughts away. I know I don’t want to go down that path, ever again. I know losing weight won’t make me happy.” 

It’s a big deal to say it out loud, but it’s true. Junhee has been working towards this point for so long, but finally she feels as though she knows what she wants. She wants recovery and happiness, not pounds shaken off her already tiny frame. She’s committed to getting better, she seriously is. It’s hard, and it will stay that way for she doesn’t know if she can ever be completely free of those pervasive thoughts, but she’s willing to work for it. 

Doctor Kim seems quite happy with what he hears, nodding his head as he finishes his notes. “So by the sound of it, I dare to suggest that we continue to wean you off your medication. I know you haven’t ever liked taking them, and I don’t think that there’s much benefit from them anymore since you’re doing so well. You’ve reached a healthy weight, like we planned, and I can tell you’ve progressed in leaps and bounds emotionally as well. But if your progress stalls, or the negative emotions come back overwhelmingly, then of course we will put you back on. How would you feel about that?”

This is the news Junhee was hoping to hear. She smiles widely at the doctor, nodding her head. “It would make me really happy if I could get off the medication soon,” she confesses. “I’m confident I’ll be fine, since I haven’t had any adverse reactions to lowering the dose so far. But of course, I’ll be careful. I don’t want to risk anything just because I want off the pills.”

They finish up the appointment after a while, and Junhee walks out of the clinic on light feet. It was better than what she expected, and she’s excited to share Chanmi and Kyungsoo this news. She knows they’re both waiting to call her and so she decides to beat them to it, calling Chanmi first to tell her everything that was said at the appointment. 

“That’s fantastic news,” Chanmi gushes as soon as Junhee is finished recounting everything. “I’m so happy for you, eonni! So you’re gonna keep taking less meds until you’re taking none?” 

Junhee nods her head out of habit, even though Chanmi can’t see her like this. “Yeah, doctor Kim said I can just keep lowering the dose little by little. I’m down to like, half of what I was taking before, and I want to be totally free from them in a month or so. You know I’ve never liked taking them, they make me feel all sorts of disoriented and strange sometimes.”

“Yeah, I know,” Chanmi sighs. Of course she knows; she has been taking care of Junhee for the past six months just like Kyungsoo has been, helping sooth Junhee’s anxiety and upset emotions, helping her over the rough patches, including the ones brought on by her medication. She knows it all. “I’m so, so happy to hear that. We’re gonna work hard, together, alright, to get you there. It’s gonna be so nice that you won’t have to take them any longer.”

“For as long as it doesn’t bring my anxiety and depression back.” Junhee knows they mustn’t get ahead of themselves too much. They have to be realistic about this, so they don’t have to be disappointed if it doesn’t work out. But she wants it just as badly as Chanmi does. “I don’t think they will, though. I’m so much happier, my brain is being fed well, and I’m healthy and not obsessively dieting anymore. I don’t see why they would come back.” 

“Exactly. And you have me, and Kyungsoo. Every step of the way.” Her determination never ceases to touch Junhee deeply. Chanmi loves so fiercely, so openly, and her unwavering support is one of the things that have gotten Junhee this far in her recovery.

“I know,” Junhee responds with. “Speaking of, I should call him. He’s probably waiting.” 

“Oh yeah, you should! He will be so happy when he hears this. I’ll see you at dinner, babe. Do you want me to bring something to celebrate with? Ice cream or something?” Chanmi says it so easily now, a question that she could not have uttered just a few short months ago. But now, it doesn’t make Junhee’s heart skip beats anymore, or calculate what she will have to do to burn it all off. She might feel guilty for it, after the fact, but she knows how to deal with that now. She knows how to get over it without giving into the voices in her head calling her fat and other ugly names. It’s alright. 

“Ice cream would be lovely. Thank you, sweetheart.”

“Love you!”

She ends the call with Chanmi, and before she can even find Kyungsoo’s name in her contacts, her boyfriend is already calling her. She’s delighted to know she can share good news with him. Kyungsoo worries for her so much, even if he tries to hide it from her so that it wouldn’t make her feel guilty. 

He’s been in her backbone, all this time, and Junhee knows she can never thank him enough for what he has done, still continues to do for her. 

“Hi there, handsome,” she greets him cheerfully, and she can hear how he’s laughing at the other end. 

“Hello, princess.” He sounds like he’s smiling. “You sound happy. I assume the appointment went well?”

“It did. Doctor Kim said that I can keep taking less drugs from now on, since I’ve been doing so well so far. He said he’s very happy with how far I’ve come and told me to keep going forward.” She can’t help the pep in her step as she walks down the street, finally feeling the relief fully hit her. She was anxious for nothing, and everything is as it should be. No more bad news, no more setbacks. 

“Princess, that’s so amazing. I was expecting good news but this is awesome. I know you’ve wanted to get off the medication since you started taking it.” Kyungsoo is still laughing, but there’s definitely truth to his words.

“I know,” Junhee sighs, “which makes this so much better. Of course I have to take my time, I can’t just go cold turkey, but I’m so excited for it already.” 

“We’ll take it step by step,” Kyungsoo hums. He’s probably already planning it out in his head, the best way for Junhee to ease into life without medication. He’s nothing but systematical and practical, qualities that both Junhee and Chanmi sort of lack. But it makes for a great balance in their lives.

“Of course. Chanmi promised to bring dessert for dinner to celebrate.” She’s only sharing this because she knows it delights him to hear her talk about food, to hear her looking forward to a meal. “Do you need me to bring anything from the store? I don’t have anything to do, I’m just going to go home now but I could stop by the store if you need me to.”

“We’re good on groceries, don’t worry. If there isn’t anything you girls need that I’m not aware of, then you don’t have to.” Kyungsoo knows the answer without even having to think about it. He really is the one who keeps everything organized in their household; Junhee and Chanmi are a little on the unorganized side, so their housekeeping would not meet Kyungsoo’s standards. But Junhee and Chanmi at least do their best to do whatever they can to help out.

“Alright. What dinner plans did you have? I could at least help prep the ingredients, even if I don’t know how to cook it,” Junhee offers as she runs down the stairs into the subway station. “Since I’m going to be home early and everything, I might as well do something useful.”

Kyungsoo laughs, and hearing that makes Junhee hope this was a video call so she could see how it makes Kyungsoo’s eyes crinkle up and reveals all of his teeth. He’s such a handsome guy, but his laugh is simply adorable. “If there’s anything you want to help me with, help me with the cleaning,” he teases her fondly. “Or just take it easy. You’ve earned it.”

Junhee pouts even though Kyungsoo cannot see it. “You shouldn’t tempt me to slack off because you know I will! I’ve watched the newest Star Wars movie three times this week, I really can’t be this lazy and do nothing around the house when you and Chanmi are both working so hard.”

She has the easiest work schedule out of all of them. Chanmi works at a music and performing arts oriented elementary school, teaching her students different instruments there. Music is her passion and she adores children, but her workdays can get long when she has lesson plans to make or big events to prepare for. Kyungsoo works at a bank, advancing fast in his career thanks to his excellent work ethics. Junhee is the only one who doesn’t work full time hours; she’s had to scale it back due to her illness and the toll it took on her. She is hoping, though, that she could go back to full time now that she’s so far into recovery. But at least splitting the rent and other expenses between the three of them, they’re comfortable even like this. 

“Princess.” Kyungsoo tuts softly. “Don’t worry about it so much, alright? You do more than enough around the house, so don’t be so hard on yourself. Alright?”

“Alright,” Junhee sighs. “I’ll try to get something productive done and then get lazy on the couch. To keep the balance, you know.”

“Sounds good. I’ll see you later, yeah?”

“Yeah. Love you.”

*****

The month passes by so fast. The days are slow but the weeks are gone before Junhee even realizes it. Time really flies, now that every hour and every day is not measured in calories as well as time. When she has the energy and ability to do everything she wants, she doesn’t even notice how the days just go by, just like that. No longer feeling stuck, no longer feeling trapped in her own body, everything has just become so much easier. She didn’t realize this before, but now that she has mostly recovered it’s become so obvious. 

And the day comes that she takes her last pill. She’s been good at gradually lowering the dosage, no matter how impatient she’s been to just get rid of her medication completely now that her doctor gave her the green light. But she doesn’t want any withdrawals or setbacks, so she follows the instructions to a tee. 

She takes the last pill at night before going to bed- or rather, the last half a pill, because it was the smallest they could chop it into. It’s kind of surreal, to think that this routine is now over. She has gotten so used to taking all this medication, and to think that she will be free from them from now on is strange, almost. But it’s what she has wanted for such a long time, so she doesn’t have it in her to be sad about it. 

She walks into the bedroom then, ready to just curl up in bed and go to sleep. Chanmi is already in bed and she can hear Kyungsoo brushing his teeth in the bathroom, so he will be joining them soon. Chanmi looks up from her phone when she spots Junhee from the corner of her eye, and sets down the device immediately to gesture for Junhee to come closer. 

“Let me braid your hair,” Chanmi insists as Junhee slides into bed with her. “I don’t understand how you sleep with your hair all loose and free like that, does it not like, get all knotted and stuff?” 

Junhee laughs, but sits down where Chanmi wants her, and pulls out the elastic that was holding her messy bun together. “Not really,” she replies. “I suppose it’s more of an annoyance to you and Kyungsoo, really. It’s probably not nice to wake up to a mouthful of hair.” 

Chanmi snickers as she quickly runs her long fingers through Junhee’s long locks, her bracelets making soft noises as they brush together. “You’re not wrong about that,” she teases, but sooths the joke away with a kiss on Junhee’s shoulder where her oversized t-shirt has slipped down and revealed a bit of skin. “But I love your hair, so I guess it’s fine.”  
Junhee elbows her gently, just to hear her giggle. She really likes the feeling of Chanmi’s fingers on her scalp, though, as she sections out her hair so she can braid it all the way from the top so it’ll stay put through the night. “You just like me having long hair so you get to enjoy the best of both worlds,” she retorts back. “The ease of having your own hair short, and then the fun of playing with my hair and styling it whatever way you want. I should chop it all off, just to spite you.”

“You wouldn’t do that.” Chanmi is so smug when she says it, and she’s right. Junhee would never cut off her hair, so her threats are meaningless. “Your life can’t be so hard, since I do your hair on most days anyway. So don’t complain, eonni.” 

“You two are like little monkeys, grooming each other like that,” Kyungsoo says as he walks into the room and closes the door behind him. Chanmi thinks that monsters are going to come into the room, if the door is left open, so it’s important to close it before they can sleep.

“Yah, I’m not looking for bugs in her hair, I’m braiding it!” Chanmi is probably poking her tongue out right now, judging by the look on Kyungsoo’s face, and it has Junhee in stitches as she tries to hold still for Chanmi so the braid wouldn’t get messed up. “You’re such a mean old man.”

“I’m younger than either of you, noona,” Kyungsoo rolls his eyes as he slides into bed and takes his glasses off. He only uses that word for Chanmi when he’s being sarcastic; despite having born in different years, they’re really only a month apart in age, and went to school the same year, so the term doesn’t really apply. Kyungsoo always calls Chanmi by her name, except when he’s poking fun of her. 

“You’re old in your soul,” Chanmi replies indignantly, although Junhee knows already that she will gladly cuddle up to him as soon as the braid is done. She might love to mess around with her boyfriend and girlfriend, but she’s a big softie at heart. 

“Did you take your medicine, princess?” Kyungsoo changes the subject like he never even heard what Chanmi said, placing his hand on Junhee’s bare thigh. “Today is your last day of taking medicine, right?” 

“Yeah.” Junhee takes his hand to squeeze in hers, forever finding comfort in how warm and safe Kyungsoo’s hand feels against her small palm and fingers. “I took my last pills just now. I’m so glad that I’m now done with them. Well, at least hopefully.” 

“I’m sure you’ll do fantastic even without them,” Chanmi comforts her, and kisses her cheek before taking the elastic from Junhee so she can tie the end of the braid. “You’ve been doing so good, eonni, I’m so, so proud of you.”

Kyungsoo squeezes her hand back, rubbing his thumb over the back of it gently. “You’ll do amazing,” he says. “You’ve been so strong and determined about getting better, and you’ve only gotten better in these past seven months. And you have us. You don’t have to do this alone.”

Kyungsoo doesn’t get sappy or emotional often, so his words really tug at Junhee’s heart strings. The braid now completed, she slides up to Kyungsoo to curl up against his side, Chanmi following suit and pressing up against her back from behind. They don’t have a set way of sleeping, no set spots in bed, but Junhee would be lying if she claimed that being in the middle wasn’t her favorite place to be. 

“I’m not scared,” she murmurs, burrowing closer to Kyungsoo and letting Chanmi slip one of her long legs in between hers. “I’m not worried, either. I’m just happy not to be on meds anymore. I don’t know when I can say that I’m fully recovered and everything… But it feels closer now. It feels more tangible, more attainable, when I’m not relying on medication anymore.”

“There’s no rush,” Chanmi replies, nuzzling the nape of her neck. She’s getting sleepier, Junhee can tell by how she’s getting clingier and quieter. She will be out like a light in a moment. “For as long as you’re happy, eonni.” 

“I am.” Junhee smiles at Kyungsoo softly as Chanmi hugs her tighter against herself. Her long limbs really come in handy when she wants to cuddle. “I’m so, so happy. And it’s all thanks to you both. I wouldn’t be here without you guys.”

“I love you both so, so much.” Chanmi yawns softly, and reaches out behind her to grab the covers and pull them over herself, Junhee, and Kyungsoo at once. “You guys are my universe.” 

Junhee and Kyungsoo share a fond smile, before Kyungsoo pushes himself up to press a kiss on Chanmi’s temple, then to Junhee’s cheek, before he gets up to turn off the lights. Chanmi’s hand slips underneath Junhee’s shirt and presses against her tummy, all warm and calming, before sliding up her ribs right below her boobs. Junhee can tell how her breathing has gotten slower already. When Kyungsoo comes back to bed he settles down on his side, facing Junhee, their foreheads almost touching as they just lie there in silence for a while.

“I really am proud of you,” Kyungsoo whispers in the darkness, gently stroking Junhee’s hair back. “You’ve come so far. A year ago, I would have never thought we would have achieved so much in such a short time… but I’m so glad to have you with us, healthy and happy.” 

Junhee reaches out to rub his side gently. She’s entirely stuck in Chanmi’s grip, her arms like tentacles around her, but she can at least do this much. “It’s because you helped me get this far,” she murmurs back. “You’ve carried me forward when I was losing my strength. I’m so thankful…” 

Kyungsoo falls silent for a while, his hand falling back down on the bed and finding Junhee’s other one to hold. “This summer is going to be the best one yet,” he mumbles quietly, also getting sleepier by the moment. Junhee keeps rubbing his side, hoping to sooth him to sleep sooner. He needs the rest. “You’re finally free from it all, finally free to just be yourself. I can’t wait…”

Somehow that statement makes Junhee tear up, but she tries to hold it back. But it’s true- her eating disorder had always loomed at the back of her mind no matter how much she’s tried to enjoy herself, and Chanmi and Kyungsoo have never seen her in any other way. Not that her life was always just pure misery, but certainly the highs and the happiest moments were always at least a little bit tainted by her illness. Now, while some of the thoughts still linger, Junhee knows they do not control her like they used to. She’s free, free to let herself flourish and blossom. But to think that it’s something her partners also look forward to, it makes her emotional. 

“It’s going to be an amazing summer,” she replies, although she’s not sure if Kyungsoo can even hear her anymore. But it’s a promise she wants to keep, for Kyungsoo and Chanmi alike. They deserve to be free, too, free from having to worry about her constantly. They’ve made an effort to make sure their relationship would not be completely overtaken by her issues with food, and they’ve done their best to give everyone room to express their needs, but Junhee knows that her problems still took over an unfair proportion of everything. Her only comfort is that for the past few months, it has been getting better, and she knows that finally it’s something they can begin to put behind themselves. It feels nice. She’s always felt so guilty, and she’s relieved to be free from that as well. 

She can feel how Kyungsoo’s breaths even out, his chest rising and falling evenly underneath her palm on his ribs. Chanmi is still fast asleep, curled around her, still squeezing her tightly to hold onto her. Junhee makes sure Kyungsoo is covered with blankets as well, before closing her eyes finally. She could not go to sleep without her partners right there with her, their steady breaths and heartbeats lulling her to sleep little by little.

*****

Another week passes by, Junhee’s first off medication. She’s perhaps overly vigilant in assessing and observing her moods and emotions, but everything seems to be going swell. There are no symptoms of withdrawal to speak of, eating doesn’t suddenly get infinitely more difficult, and life carries on like usual. It’s a promising sign, although Junhee tries to remain realistic instead of too optimistic. 

But as the drugs finally leave her body, something forgotten inside her begins to stir, unbeknownst to her. 

It happens in the late afternoon. She’s the first one to come home from work, and so she decides she should cook dinner for a change. It won’t be as tasty as anything Kyungsoo would make, but she thinks he deserves a break from cooking duty. It’ll be a fun surprise for them both when they come home to dinner already waiting for them. 

She has been filled with this strange energy all day, making her restless. Not anxious though- it’s just pure energy, coursing through her, and she doesn’t quite know how to channel it. She cleaned everything she could at work, and now she can’t even stay still at home. But cooking, and maybe tidying up, should be the right outlet for all of that bubbling energy, or so she at least thinks. 

Junhee decides she shouldn’t try anything too ambitious. If she prepares a large batch of soup tonight, then Kyungsoo and Chanmi can have that for breakfast tomorrow, so that’s what she decides to do. There’s some meat in the fridge that she can grill to go with the soup, and of course she’ll cook some rice and prep side dishes. Pleased with her plan, she gets to work to chopping vegetables to get her soup started. 

She works happily for a good long while, preparing ingredients and getting the broth started in her pot. She doesn’t cook very often, because her eating disorder sucked all joy out of it and made it a very stressful event instead, but it’s always more fun than she thinks it’s going to be. Especially now, when she can freely taste her broth and things to make sure it’s all seasoned right, it makes her so happy. Preparing something delicious for her loved ones, she couldn’t be more pleased with herself. 

As her good mood continues to skyrocket, so pleased with her successful idea of cooking dinner, she begins to sing and dance across the kitchen as she goes. She’s not the greatest singer, doesn’t have the natural talent Kyungsoo has for it or the passion for music that Chanmi possesses, but she enjoys it a lot. There’s something so freeing about it, especially in an empty apartment where no one can judge her for it. She knows Kyungsoo and Chanmi would never judge her- but she’s self-conscious, and would rather leave it to them when they’re infinitely better at it than she is.

But now that she has no audience, she lets loose a bit, singing and shimmying in the kitchen while stirring her pots and washing dishes. It’s a lot of fun, and also helps with that boundless energy she has today. It feels like she’s completely wired with it, buzzing all the way to her fingertips. It’s a strange kind of tension, like a storm brewing, yet she doesn’t have it in her to feel anxious about it. It feels good, it feels right, to be filled with it to the brim. She has never experienced this kind of surge in energy, but she figures that this must be how life without mental health illnesses must feel like. 

It’s the most logical explanation, but it isn’t the correct one. 

As she’s dancing, though, she gets careless, and while spinning around to grab something from the fridge, her arm bumps against glass of water she had placed on the counter. Her reflexes aren’t quick enough although she spins back around to try and catch it, and the glass wobbles once before falling off the edge of the counter. 

In an instant, that energy pent up inside her bursts forward, channeling through her like electricity. It makes her scalp tingle and her ears pop, but she’s more occupied by what’s happening right in front of her. The glass is suddenly suspended midair, the water still inside of it, as though held up by an invisible hand. And it stays there, no matter how Junhee blinks her eyes, no matter how long she holds her breath. The glass doesn’t move, it doesn’t fall. 

The silence is ringing in her ears, the weird energy still travelling through her like it’s bursting out of an endless well. The colors around her seem brighter, she feels more alive, can feel her body like she’s never felt before, yet the time around her seems to have stopped. She’s breathing, her heart is hammering in her chest, the soup still bubbles on the stove, but the glass… the glass still doesn’t move. 

It’s almost as though the glass isn’t in the same dimension as her, like it fell into a weird bubble void of gravity, void of all rules of physics. Junhee doesn’t know what to do about it though- can she touch it? Should she touch it? Is this all even real, or is she hallucinating? She’s fairly certain that this isn’t a dream, but what other explanation is there for such a freak of nature to be happening right in front of her eyes? 

She takes a deep breath, and reaches forward, unsure of what could possibly happen as her fingertips get closer to the glass. Perhaps the illusion is going to break when she tries to touch it, and it will fall… or perhaps she will wake up from this weird dream. The energy inside her is slowly starting to feel like it’s straining, like it’s draining out of her instead of just surging through her, which is confusing. Is it somehow connected to the glass somehow? But how could that be…

Just as her fingertips brush against the cool glass, the front door opens and Chanmi and Kyungsoo stumble inside, laughing and giggling about something. The noise startles Junhee who was so deep in thought, contemplating the strange glass, and as she jumps back and looks away from the glass, the stream of energy snaps broken and the glass falls down onto the floor with a loud crash as it shatters into pieces, water splattering everywhere. 

She can’t help screaming out of surprise, staring at the mess with wide eyes. She has no idea what just happened, and the energy she was so full of suddenly feels tamed and subdued. None of this makes sense- how could that have happened? It cannot have been real.

“Eonni?” Chanmi calls out worriedly, startling Junhee the second time as she snaps back into the present moment once more. “Is everything alright?”

“Y-yeah, I’m okay,” she replies, swallowing thickly, her heart suddenly hammering in her chest. She doesn’t understand what just happened, but she knows she can’t tell anything about it to her partners. They would just worry, worry that she’s out of her mind somehow. They can’t find out.

“You guys just startled me when you walked in, and I accidentally knocked the glass over,” she explains as Kyungsoo appears in the kitchen, brow furrowed and looking worried. Junhee flashes him a shaky smile, before she busies herself with picking up the biggest shards of glass from the floor. “If one of you could bring me the dust pan, or the vacuum please? Keep your shoes on, I don’t want you to step on broken glass.”

“Careful now, princess,” Kyungsoo warns her as he walks closer, gently grabbing Junhee by the hips and backing her out of the mess of water and glass. “And don’t touch it with bare hands, I don’t want you to cut yourself. I’ll use the dish gloves to clean up.”

Junhee just watches as Kyungsoo takes over the cleaning, pulling on the thick yellow gloves they use when washing dishes and picking up the bigger pieces of broken glass. Chanmi also steps into the kitchen with the dust pan in tow, and carefully kisses Junhee as greeting, mindful of the couple of pieces of glass she’s still holding. 

“Good thing you didn’t get hurt,” she murmurs as she pecks Junhee’s temple and then the crown of her head. “It’s usually me who’s clumsy, not you. Were you cooking dinner for us?”

Junhee just nods, and when Kyungsoo holds out the empty cardboard box he grabbed from the recycling pile to collect the glass in, she gently drops them in there. She lets Chanmi and Kyungsoo clean up, since they’re still both wearing shoes, but the disbelief and confusion eat away at her. What just happened? Did she imagine it all? She must have, because there’s no way… No way. Surely the glass fell down like it should have, gravity and all. There’s just no way what she saw was real. 

She wants to tell Kyungsoo and Chanmi, but she knows they would not respond well to it. The last thing they need is to think that she’s experiencing hallucinations. Maybe it’s the drugs leaving her body- it doesn’t sound probable, but it’s the only reason she can think of. Bottom line is, she can’t tell anyone about this, not yet at least. Perhaps if it gets worse she will have to, but until then this will have to be her secret. Or maybe it was a ghost. That thought alone makes her smile again, because she has never believed in ghosts or other spiritual beings. But perhaps this can now be her own personal ghost story, something she can share years down the line.

Having made up her mind about it, she chooses to ignore it, determinedly setting the whole thing aside. Whatever it was, it can’t have been important. It probably won’t happen again. She throws herself back into her daily life, back into joking with Chanmi and kissing stubborn Kyungsoo, happy to share with them the food she prepared with love. The weird buzzing energy has simmered down but she welcomes it, as she can finally just sit down and not feel like she’s going to explode if she doesn’t do something.

But she will soon learn that the energy that has now awoken inside her could not, and should not be ignored.


	2. Chapter 2

After that, the weird energy stays gone for a while. Junhee doesn’t think much of it, doesn’t connect it to the weird glass she saw levitating in the kitchen like gravity suddenly disappeared. In fact, she does her best to forget all about the whole thing. She can’t rationally explain it, and the more she thinks about it the more confusing it gets. So, she decides that best course of action would be to completely ignore that it ever happened. It must have been all in her head. Either it was her vivid imagination doing tricks, or she’s hallucinating, but either way there’s no possibility that it could have been real. 

Junhee’s good at denial. She’s good at pushing things out of her mind and pretending like they’re not there. It’s how she ignored her eating disorder for a very long time, and it’s also how she chooses to deal with this, whatever it actually is. If she doesn’t think about it, doesn’t acknowledge it, then it surely it will just… vanish from her memory. 

She’s never been nothing but determined, and she forgets all about the whole thing soon enough. And hence, when the energy starts building up again, she doesn’t realize what’s coming, doesn’t read the signs that this will have consequences for her. She just gladly accepts that she has more energy to accomplish things, that her mood feels brighter, and her whole body is tingly with it, her footsteps bouncy like she’s walking on clouds. It’s pleasant, and it’s a feeling she has never had before- but just how she did previously, she attributes it to recovery, and finally being off meds. 

But this is not how normal people feel when they’re healthy and happy. 

Even her employers pick up on her amazing mood and boundless energy, complimenting her on how radiant she’s been as of late. Junhee just laughs it off, and says that it’s just the summer time that has her so full of life. She likes her bosses and she would love to tell them all about what she has planned for the summer when they ask him what’s so great about the current season, but she knows they would not be happy to hear that she’s dating two people. They know about Kyungsoo but not about Chanmi, so instead she has to bend the truth and say she has plans with her boyfriend. 

Hiding their threeway relationship is relatively simple, at least. The girls say they’re each other’s best friend, and Junhee introduced Kyungsoo as her boyfriend to her family and friends, while Chanmi did the same. They have mutual friends who know about their real arrangement, but the rest they’ve kept in the dark. It isn’t ideal, but it works.

Once again, she’s restless when she gets off work, and unwilling to just go home. It’s odd and new- at her sickest, she never had the strength or the will to be in public much, especially after a full work day. Her body was too weak, but also her insecurities made being in front of people just too difficult on some days. But today, today she doesn’t want to just go home and crash in front of the TV. Besides, Kyungsoo and Chanmi won’t even be home yet, and she doesn’t wish to be alone. At least in a crowd, she’s with other people, albeit all strangers. 

She actually does some shopping for the apartment. They’ve lived in it for a year now, and it looks cozy as is, but she thinks that it could use a little bit more colour, a little bit more life. It’s hard to make a cohesive interior design out of all the instruments they have and everything else they’ve got piled in the living room, but they could always make it a little bit more lived in. Since it’s summer, plants seem appropriate, and she buys a few small potted plants to take home with her. 

They don’t have a proper windowsill or a balcony to set them on, so she sprinkles them around the apartment. She places one in the bedroom on the bedside table, takes one to the living room and sets it on the bookshelf with her manhwas and Kyungsoo’s movie DVDs. “You’re so pretty,” she tells the plant with a pleased nod, before she takes the last two to the kitchen and sets them down on the dining table. The table is never set completely full, so it should be alright to have the plants there, although she has a feeling that Kyungsoo might want to move them. But she’ll worry about that later. 

The lady at the store told her to water them when she got home, and so she decides to do just that. She bought even a cute little watering can for the purpose, and she only gets giddier as she fills it up with water, her energy bubbling up once again. If she hadn’t been so adamant to forget the previous incident, she might recognize the feeling- but she brushes it aside, and skips back over to the dining table to water the two plants she placed there. 

She’s humming under her breath as she gently waters them, pleased with her handiwork. “You’re going to be so delightful when you get a little bit bigger and grow more flowers too,” she says to the plants, although she can’t help but feel a little bit silly for thinking out loud. But it’s almost as though those words trigger something- the energy suddenly makes her blood rush faster through her veins, it feels like, before it explodes outward, channeling through her like before. And this is a sensation that she does remember, can’t pretend it isn’t there, although at first nothing happens.

As the energy seeps out of her, like a thin stream gushing outwards without her being able to control it at all, something peculiar starts to happen. The plants she just watered begin to stir, and at first she thinks it’s just her eyes playing tricks on her. Plants don’t move, surely they don’t- and they aren’t moving either. They’re growing. 

They’re growing in front of her very own eyes. 

They both get taller, wider, pushing out a new leaf after another, their thin branches soon hanging over the edges of their pots onto the table and down towards the floor. But they still continue to gain height, and width, growing rapidly, winding and turning as they seek the source of light in the room. And then come the buds, small buds everywhere that suddenly open and turn into brilliant flowers, more of them appearing the longer Junhee looks. 

The sound of the pot cracking startles her, and she realizes that their roots have outgrown their pots to the point where they’re now making the pottery give in under the pressure. But still the plants show no sign of slowing down, and she finally understands, instinctively, what is happening. She clutches her stomach, where the main source of her energy seems to be nestled, but of course any physical obstacle isn’t going to hinder it. 

“Stop! Stop growing, now, please!” she commands, but it doesn’t seem to be doing anything. The longest vines are about to reach the floor soon, and she doesn’t know if they can just keep growing infinitely if she doesn’t stop them somehow. The stream of energy feels weaker, like it’s running lower inside her, so are they just going to grow until she runs out of energy to feed them? 

The glass of water crosses her mind at last. What made it drop down, after it had hovered in midair for who knows how long? The answer isn’t obvious, but comes to her eventually. Her concentration had been broken when Chanmi and Kyungsoo walked in- she had looked away, snapped out of it, and the strange phenomenon went away. 

So she squeezes her eyes shut, and forces herself to count down from hundred in intervals of seven. Math has never been her strong suit, and although forgetting something purposefully and frantically isn’t an effective strategy, the focus of her energy at least shifts inwards again and the thin string pulling it out of her snaps and breaks once more. 

She opens her eyes, and the plants have stopped growing. Not a moment too soon- they’ve covered half of the table, and reach down to the floor on the other side. The amount of flowers is just crazy, and they’re so vivid in their colors, so bright and beautiful. It would all look so gorgeous- if Junhee had been trying to recreate a small jungle in their apartment. 

“Fuck this,” she curses under her breath, and gets to work to fixing the situation. 

She barely has it all under control when Chanmi and Kyungsoo arrive home. She cut down the plants to a more reasonable size, and managed to find bigger pots to plant them in. She takes out the garbage to hide all of the evidence, and gets back to the front door at the same time with her partners arriving from work. Their work places are in the same neighbourhood, so they often travel the commute together. 

“What are you up to?” Kyungsoo asks with a laugh and a kiss. “Why are you outside?”

“I had to take the trash out,” Junhee replies, a little breathless, before she tiptoes to kiss Chanmi as well. “I’m so glad you guys are home. Missed you.” And having them there helps her feel less frazzled. She hasn’t still calmed down after what happened. It makes so little sense to her, all of it, but this time it’s so much harder to just ignore. There’s physical evidence that it all happened- the broken pots, the plant parts she had to cut away, all of them piled up in the trash where she left them. She can’t pretend that those aren’t real. 

Kyungsoo and Chanmi also notice the flowers immediately. “These are so pretty!” Chanmi gushes, admiring the plants guilty of Junhee’s internal distress. “Where’d you find such pretty flowers? There’s so many, and so many buds too! These look so beautiful.” 

“I think I just got lucky,” Junhee mutters, unable to give an honest answer. They were just regular plants mere moments ago, and then… Then whatever that was, it happened.

“These are nice,” Kyungsoo comments, but Junhee knows he sincerely means it. Kyungsoo isn’t the most verbal with a lot of things, but whatever he says, he means absolutely. It’s one of his many qualities that Junhee loves- as much as she loves how open Chanmi is about everything, how she’s so ready to offer sweet words to anyone and everyone. 

But she can’t help but feel out of sorts. What on earth is going on? What is the weird energy that has somehow taken form inside her? If she didn’t know any better… she would call it magic. What other explanation is there for flowers growing in such a manner, or objects floating in midair when they should be falling and crashing down? But that can’t be. It can’t be. Magic isn’t real. This is not real. 

She feels almost shaky, her brain on overdrive. She needs a moment to herself, to just get it together. “I think I have a migraine coming,” she says, and both Chanmi and Kyungsoo immediately turn towards her once more. “So uh, I’ll go have a lay down before dinner.”

“Aw, babe,” Chanmi says as she comes up to her to hug her, kissing the crown of her head repeatedly. “Did you take any meds yet? Do you want me to massage your shoulders? Are they stiff? Or I could run a bath for you if you want one, eonni.”

“No, it’s alright, I think I just need a nap,” she insists, gently stroking down Chanmi’s arm. “I took some ibuprofen already, so. I just need to wait for it to kick in I guess.”

“Go rest up.” Kyungsoo nods before he opens the fridge to look inside, probably trying to decide what they should have for dinner. “You were tossing and turning all night, so I think your body could use some more sleep.” 

“Was I?” Junhee had no idea. Chanmi laughs gently, and rubs her cheek affectionately against Junhee’s hair. “Yeah, you were so restless,” she replies, squeezing Junhee a little bit tighter before letting her go. “You kept kicking the covers off, and turning from side to side. I was going to lay on top of you to keep you still, but Kyungsoo told me I shouldn’t squish you.” 

“I’m sorry.” Junhee feels a little bit sheepish. It must have been all that weird energy she had all day, it must have troubled her even when she was asleep. Not that she remembers sleeping badly at all, but perhaps she got lucky. “You guys should have woken me up so I could have gotten up and slept on the couch, instead. You don’t have to suffer just because I’m not sleeping well.” 

“Don’t worry about it,” Kyungsoo and Chanmi say in unison, and they all laugh over it. “Seriously, don’t worry. We all have sleepless nights sometimes, or keep each other awake for a reason or another,” Kyungsoo says calmly. “Like when Chanmi once a month decides to snore and it feels like a thunderstorm and an earthquake hit us at the same time.” 

“Yah!” Chanmi finally lets go of Junhee to stomp over to Kyungsoo to grab him in a headlock. “Take that back! I don’t snore that loud, ever!” 

Kyungsoo elbows her to get out of her hold, which certainly works because Kyungsoo has always been good with his sharp punches. Messing around with him can be dangerous sometimes. “You so do, and noona knows it too. Don’t you, princess?”

Despite herself, Junhee rolls her eyes. She feels so much better already, just thanks to her partners’ antics. They always make her feel better, even when they don’t know that they’re cheering her up. This is one of the many reasons why she loves them so dearly. 

“I’m not going to get involved in this,” she says and holds her hands up in the air. “I’ll go and get that nap, you guys be quiet so I can sleep.” It feels almost like a waste of her time, now, to go to the bedroom alone to try and get some rest when she could be hanging out with her girlfriend and boyfriend, but she knows Kyungsoo would send her here soon anyway. Even if Chanmi might forget about her supposed migraine, Kyungsoo wouldn’t. 

Sleep doesn’t come easy, though, her thoughts racing hundred miles an hour. What exactly is happening to her, or around her? What is this thing that has suddenly emerged, somewhere deep inside of her, and why is it happening now? What will it do next, if it returns? She has no idea, no answers whatsoever. She could forget the water glass, she could insist it didn’t happen, but this… This was too concrete, too real. She saw those plants grow in front of her eyes, she saw the cracked pots and had to cut off the new branches. She felt it all with her hands. It was real. 

Even when Chanmi comes to wake her up with kisses so she can eat dinner with them, Junhee’s heart is still not at ease. She’s nowhere near understanding this strange phenomenon, and a part of her wishes that it was just hallucinations after all. Her mental health has failed her before, at least that’s a tiny bit familiar- she’d rather have that, than this alien force brewing inside her that she can’t control or understand. But for the sake of her partners, she puts on a smile and has dinner with them as carefree as she can. If they sense anything wrong with her mood, they don’t comment on it. It’s a relief, because she doesn’t know how she could possibly even begin to explain this mystery to them.

It has to stay secret, for as long as she can keep it that way.

*****

Summer is now in full swing, and it makes Chanmi itch to travel. “We don’t have to go anywhere far,” she says. She’s been pestering Kyungsoo and Junhee to give in to her wanderlust for days now. “We could literally just go to Jeju island and I would be happy. I know we agreed to use our vacation days around Chuseok to make the most out of them, but we only need a weekend to go to Jeju!” 

They’re all laying on the couch, Chanmi with her head on Junhee’s lap and her long legs draped over Kyungsoo’s thighs. Kyungsoo glances at Junhee with a meaningful look, rubbing Chanmi’s shins gently. It’s really hot outside, but their aircon is working wonders. If there’s something they don’t go cheap on, it’s the aircon. It’s worth it to be able to touch each other and not want to melt into a puddle. 

“Sounds like you’ve thought about this a lot, haven’t you,” he retorts. “You really want to go, huh?” 

“Yes! I really want to! We’ve all deserved a little break, haven’t we? We haven’t done anything super exciting for ages.” Chanmi is pouting now, making puppy dog eyes up at Junhee. She knows Junhee’s weak spots all too well. “Seoul is so suffocating and dusty, it’s not nice.” 

“You will miss this dryness once the monsoon season begins,” Junhee teases, running her fingers through Chanmi’s short hair. “But I guess you’re right. We haven’t really done anything too exciting as of late, haven’t even gone on that many dates. We could use a little excitement in our lives.” 

“Right? We’ve never gone to Jeju island together and that’s like, a must for all couples you know. And there’re so many things you can do there, too, so I’m sure we all would have lots of fun there. Kyungsoo, won’t you say yes? To your two favourite girls?” Chanmi pouts her rosy mouth for extra effect, even if Kyungsoo is the most resistant to cuteness out of all of them.

Kyungsoo scoffs, but he can’t hide how fond he is even though he makes a valiant effort. “You are getting so spoiled,” he huffs. “We’re supposed to be saving money for the big trip, didn’t we agree on that? We can’t fly around the country every weekend just for a bit of fun.”

Chanmi shoots up, and slides up to Kyungsoo to sit in his lap to bring her pout and puppy dog eyes closer so he can’t look away. Junhee can barely hold back her giggles, so amused by her girlfriend’s antics. She can be so precious, but also so cunning when there’s something she wants. 

“But it’s not every weekend,” she points out with her sweetest voice. “Just this once, you know. It’s such a long time until Chuseok, we’ve earned ourselves a short break. Eonni is working longer hours now too, we’re saving up money much faster than we thought we would. You wanted to have a super special summer, didn’t you?”

Kyungsoo heaves a sigh, his shoulders drooping as he wraps his arms around Chanmi’s waist to hold her closer. “I guess so,” he says, resigned. “Fine, let’s do it. If we could all get the Friday and the following Monday off that would be great so we could make the most of it, but if not then we’ll just have to do with a weekend.” They all know Chanmi’s job is the hardest for her to get extra days off, but she also has her school principal wrapped around her pinky, so anything is possible.

“Awesome!” Chanmi lands a wet smooch on Kyungsoo’s cheek just out of joy, and Junhee gives in to her giggles before she gets up as well to slide into Kyungsoo’s lap next to Chanmi. Like this, Kyungsoo has his arms full of his girls, but Chanmi and Junhee both know that it’s exactly how he wants it. He doesn’t always show it, but he can be possessive, and likes feeling like he’s providing his girls with care and protection. 

He doesn’t even have it in him to put on a grumpy exterior, and instead he cranes his neck to ask for kisses from both of them, which the girls happily provide. And usual, it’s Chanmi who gets the most excited the quickest, her kisses turning longer and headier, cupping Kyungsoo’s cheeks to keep him put for as long as she wants him, before she does the same to Junhee. There’s evident intent in all of her actions, made even clearer when she shifts her legs so that she’s straddling one of Kyungsoo’s thighs, and rolls her hips down to rut against him. 

“Can we?” she whines quietly, rubbing herself against Kyungsoo even more insistently, glancing back and forth between her partners. “I know it’s hot and icky but I just love you both so much, and I want to touch.”

Sex between the three of them is somewhat new- for a long time, Junhee was too self-conscious and insecure to take all of her clothes off for sex, and having two partners watching her made it even worse. Before her recovery process and therapy, it was hard for them to do it all three of them without making her uncomfortable and more often than not, she refused sex altogether. She would hide in the living room, pretending to read, while Chanmi and Kyungsoo would go at it in the bedroom, which only made her feel even worse. But she didn’t have the heart to ask them not to enjoy their healthy sex drives when they could, and she knew she could have joined them at any time- it was just her mind holding her back. 

But at least her recovery has made her comfortable with her body again, and sex is no longer something for her to fear. Chanmi is the most in love with their threesomes, it appears, although she’s always had the highest sex drive anyway.

Kyungsoo looks at Junhee, waiting for her response, even as he slips his hand underneath Chanmi, beneath her skirt to rub over her clit. Chanmi throws her head back and shudders slightly, and how could Junhee turn down such a beautiful girl when she’s asking so prettily? 

“I want to touch too,” she admits, even as she pushes herself off and on her feet. “Let’s do it like this, then.” She gently guides Chanmi so she’s straddling Kyungsoo fully, before getting on Kyungsoo’s thighs behind her. It’s a tight squeeze to get her knees on the couch, but thankfully she’s small. She runs her hands up and down Chanmi’s body to appreciate her fully, and she can feel Kyungsoo’s hands doing the same.

“Not fair, you can’t team up against me like this,” Chanmi whines, but it melts into high pitched moans as Kyungsoo takes off her t-shirt, revealing her bare chest, and leans forward to take one of her nipples into his mouth to suck while Junhee fondles her other boob and stomach from behind. 

“You’re the prettiest, so we totally should team up against you,” Junhee claims, peppering kisses down her shoulder, and Kyungsoo’s mouth and fingers make sure Chanmi doesn’t get another word in sideways. 

They make quick work of their clothes, stripping down hurriedly. Chanmi was right, it is kind of icky to be doing this when they’re so hot already, but the lust has now taken over for all of them. Kyungsoo and Junhee rile Chanmi up until she’s deliciously wet in between her folds and begging for it, hips rolling to get more of the teasing fingers on her sensitive clit and inside her. It’s easy to get her to sit on Kyungsoo’s thick cock after that, when she’s already wet and needy, and she bounces so prettily up and down as Kyungsoo and Junhee continue to touch her, guide her, kiss her. 

She’s always so sensitive, and Junhee’s fingers on her clit really don’t aid her in lasting long. She comes undone so easily for them, between them, moaning out their names as she does. Watching her so pleased is always better than coming herself, Junhee thinks, as she gently scrapes her teeth over Chanmi’s shoulder to leave a small mark there.

Chanmi climaxes soon, head thrown back and grinding down on Kyungsoo’s pelvis, fucking herself on Kyungsoo’s cock with small rolls of her hips, kissing Kyungsoo messily. Kyungsoo just holds her up as best as he can, while Junhee just runs her hands up and down her body to appreciate her beauty, her smooth skin, her long and lean figure.

But Chanmi is nothing but selfless, and she pushes herself up as soon as she can get her wits about her. She wriggles her way out from between her partners only to push Junhee forward so she can take her previous position. Junhee laughs but obeys, and leans in to kiss Kyungsoo eagerly, pleased to get to touch him finally. 

“Pretty princess,” Kyungsoo sighs, before licking into her mouth. His cock is ruddy and hard, curved against his stomach, and Junhee can’t resist the urge to touch, thumbing the sensitive head just to make Kyungsoo shudder and groan. 

Chanmi slides her hand in between Junhee’s legs even as she covers her shoulders and neck in hungry kisses, and wastes no time in fucking her with her fingers. She has amazing hands, and Junhee could come apart so easily with just those- but Kyungsoo has yet to reach his peak, so that wouldn’t be fair. 

“I’m fine, I’m wet enough, just let me-”

It’s a team effort to hoist her up so that Kyungsoo can slide inside her, and Junhee can’t help but sigh, pleased to feel him inside her once more. Dating a guy and a girl really gets her the best of both worlds. 

Chanmi and Kyungsoo are both generous with praise with her, knowing how insecure she used to be about her body especially in moments like this. But everything is more frantic now, as both her and Kyungsoo are getting closer and closer, strung out after having watched Chanmi enjoy herself. They could try and make it last longer, but there’s no need for that right now. This is all about raw enjoyment, not a performance.

Kyungsoo comes first, inside her, crying out softly as he does. Chanmi takes that as cue to gently finger Junhee’s clit, using her whole body to gently rock Junhee back and forth to ride Kyungsoo continuously even though it makes Kyungsoo whine with oversensitivity. Junhee climaxes soon after, pent up and pleased to have watched both of her partners enjoy themselves. She collapses forward, breathless, while Chanmi gets up to sit on the couch next to Kyungsoo for a proper cuddle so they’re not both sitting on his thighs anymore. 

“Are your legs asleep,” Junhee murmurs when she can catch her breath, earning herself an amused laugh from Kyungsoo who wraps his arm around her naked back. 

“Yeah, I think so, but it was worth it,” he responds with, a playful glint in his eye. “You two are always worth it.”

*****

So, they head to Jeju not two weeks later. They managed to all wrangle the Friday off, so they head out on Thursday evening, as soon as they all get off work. It’s an exciting day, because they’ve never travelled together aside from taking the bus to Gyeongju or Busan once or twice. This is their first time taking a plane together, and somehow that feels like a big deal. Looking forward to the trip helps Junhee forget all about the strange things that have happened to her- there’s just so many more pleasant things to think about, things to plan, things to direct her energy towards. If the plants continue to grow any faster than average, at least she doesn’t notice.

They head to the Gimpo airport, all of them with their little luggage in tow. Kyungsoo was strict about not overpacking for such a short trip so they could avoid having to check in baggage, and he was right. It’s a smart move, and gets them through the initial steps a little bit faster. Luckily the airport isn’t too packed, given that it’s indeed an odd weekday afternoon, so the crowds aren’t too bad to handle. Chanmi is bouncing with energy and almost impossible to make stand still, even as they line up for the security check, but neither Kyungsoo or Junhee has the heart to tell her to stay put. Besides, her excitement is contagious. 

They fly out to Jeju, the flight time so short that Junhee could swear even her commute takes longer than that. When they land, the sun has already started to set, the slowly growing twilight adding to the overall atmosphere of the place. This is not Junhee’s first time on Jeju island, but it is for Chanmi and Kyungsoo both, so the fact that they’re all coming here together makes it all the more special. 

Kyungsoo was smart enough to reserve them a rental car, which they go to pick up at the airport. Jeju island is hard to get around without a car and while biking would be an option, they don’t want to waste precious time biking around instead of doing the things they want to do. Although none of them drive very often, Kyungsoo is still confident as he gets behind the wheel, and Chanmi and Junhee playfully argue about the shotgun before Junhee gives in and just sits at the back. 

“The weather forecast says we’re going to have nice weather all weekend, isn’t that amazing?” Chanmi exclaims as she checks her phone. “No rain, no nothing! It’s going to be so much fun. We can do everything we wanted to do.” 

“Pretty sure your bucket list right now is a little too long for us to accomplish all of it,” Junhee says with a laugh, gently pulling on Chanmi’s ponytail. “But you’re right, we got lucky. It would have been a bummer to have rain all weekend long.”

They find their Airbnb easily enough, with just a little bit help from Naver maps, and the owner is already there to greet them and show them around the place. It’s a beautiful traditional style house, but with all the comforts and luxuries of the modern day, and it’s going to be a cozy little place to enjoy during the evenings after spending the day exploring and having fun. The kind lady enthusiastically gets them situated in the bedrooms, Chanmi and Junhee in one and Kyungsoo by himself, the three of them exchanging amused looks behind her back. They’re going to all migrate into just one room as soon as she’s gone, but they’ll play along for now. 

The fridge is stocked, just how they requested, so they don’t have to waste time going grocery shopping, and the lady was even kind enough to prepare food for them that they’ll just have to heat up. They thank her profusely before she leaves, delighted by how welcoming and kind she was and amused by her pleasant Jeju accent. 

The sun is already below the horizon, the twilight only growing darker by each passing moment, but they’re all too excited to go to bed just yet. They take a small hike around the village, just to listen to the ocean waves and feel the wind in their hair. Junhee loves the sea so much, always has, even though she was born and raised in Seoul, and the seaside even in Incheon isn’t that impressive compared to the East sea. But she’s always felt a pull towards the ocean, towards its dangerous and powerful beauty, its serene surface and strong waves. It’s an attraction she’s never been able to explain, but perhaps it’s just something in her blood. Some people are born to love storms, others adore the sun, and she was made to cherish the sea. 

They would go down to the shore, but Kyungsoo is worried about the potential risks, so they just stay on the path, and head back inside once it truly grows too dark to see much of anything. But the village seemed so cozy and delightful; thanks to its location near the airport it’s been mostly been revived for tourism, but there are still some fishing boats bobbing along the waves, a sign of part of the traditional way of live still being preserved on the island. It will be fun to explore more the next day. 

They fall asleep all cuddled together, having pushed the traditional mattress together in one room so they have a bed wide enough for all of them. There’s something so, so comforting about falling asleep to the sound of waves crashing into the shore just a few hundred meters away, and Junhee doesn’t remember when she last felt this light. 

They spend that Friday driving around the island, seeing sights, enjoying attractions, trying out local food and exploring everything Jeju has to offer. Chanmi is of course absolutely riveted by the traditional music and instruments, since they’re so drastically different from the traditions in the mainland, and Kyungsoo and Junhee let her do her thing while they walk around taking pictures and checking out the local markets nearby. It’s a busy day, because they have no time to waste, but they try to still kick back and not rush too much. They can come again, the island isn’t going anywhere. 

Halla mountain looks beautiful in the horizon, but they unanimously decide not to go hiking. While it is one of the most famous attractions and activities on the island, none of them are too keen on the idea of spending a whole day in this heat climbing up the mountainside. “Maybe next time,” Kyungsoo points out sagely, and the girls ready agree with him. 

Dinner takes place at a delightful local seafood restaurant. While seafood is nice even in Seoul, it doesn’t hold a candle to the real delicacies of the Southern coast. They’re the only tourists in the restaurant that night, and receive all kinds of special treatment from the ladies running the place. Chanmi and Junhee can’t stop giggling about how in love with Kyungsoo the ladies are, jokingly asking him if he’s married yet and if he’d like to be introduced to their daughters or granddaughters. Kyungsoo is blushing and so flustered he can’t get even a word out, which is truly such a precious thing to witness. He can be so adorable, even though he always vehemently denies such accusations. 

As they go to sleep that night, Junhee can feel a weird undercurrent of energy running through her. It feels different from the things she’s felt before- it’s more loaded, more powerful, but also more elusive. It’s almost as if there’s something tugging on her very soul, trying to get her to follow the silent call… but she doesn’t quite know where to. It fills her to the brim like before, but it runs deeper. It almost has a taste, a smell, a feel- but it escapes her every time she tries to purposefully reach for it.

It scares her, it scares her so much, but she knows there isn’t anything she can do about it. She has a slight grasp on how she might be able to control it, should it unleash itself again, since the distraction trick did work last time, but she has no idea how to prevent it from happening. She can only hope that it’s something quite discreet and manageable- she doesn’t want to suddenly raise monstrous plants, or fish, although she has no idea what the limits of this strange energy are.

Sleep claims her in the late hours of the night, yet she wakes up alert and lively as though having rested plentifully. It’s a bright side to it, at least, although it does nothing to set her worries at ease. But it’s so easy to get carried away though, her mood lifted up by her partners. It’s impossible to stay moody when Chanmi and Kyungsoo are both so excited for their second day of vacation. 

They do some more driving around, even stop by at the sex museum. It gives them the giggles so bad that they’re all holding their stomach when they walk out of there, as immature as it could be. That afternoon they also finally head to the shore, to explore and perhaps even go for a swim. The summer heat is really getting intense, and a refreshing dip in the ocean sounds pretty ideal.

They get kimbap rolls and other things to eat, before heading down to the beach with their towels and things. They pick a spot near the water and spread their towels there to sit on the sand and enjoy the beautiful scenery, the blue water and the green hills. “Han river just can’t compete,” Chanmi sighs, and Junhee and Kyungsoo have to agree with the sentiment. Born and raised in Seoul as they all are, they know that the mellow river doesn’t hold a candle to the wild beauty of any ocean. 

Junhee is the most eager to get in the water, and she’s done first with their light meal. “I want to go for a swim,” she says and stands up to take off her dress, having worn her swimsuit underneath. It’s yet another part of progress, not being ashamed of her body like this; before, she would have never gone swimming where others could see, hardly even in front of her partners. She does feel self-conscious about it slightly, but is determined not to let that ruin her fun. She’s missed out on too many opportunities to enjoy herself in the past. 

“Be careful,” Kyungsoo reminds her, glancing at the water cautiously. The waves aren’t particular strong though, the wind gentle and warm. The conditions are wonderful for a swim. “Don’t go too far, alright?” 

“I won’t,” Junhee chirps, ruffling his short hair fondly. “I wouldn’t want to scare you, old man.” She tiptoes away from him as soon as she says that, to avoid any retaliation, before skipping across the sand towards the ocean. 

The water washing over her feet isn’t too cold but it gives her goosebumps as she wades into the water but she doesn’t mind. The pull she felt before is back, enticing her, urging her to enter the ocean, and none of the usual alarm bells go off in her mind. She’s so eager to be in the water, to feel the water all around her, and the new way her blood sings and heart dances in joy only feel natural right now. She belongs here, she wants to be here. She should be here. 

As she leans forward and lets the water finally carry all of her weight, something just locks into place. This was meant to be, her and the ocean, both of them as one, moving together. She doesn’t even feel the strain in her muscles as she just moves through the water, laughing happily as she does, bouncing along the waves and even enjoying the way the water washes over her head sometimes. 

She plays like that for a while, just swimming forward, and she only realizes how far she’s swam when she hears Kyungsoo’s voice in the distance. She looks over her shoulder and oh- she really has swum too far. But something in her heart is disappointed even as she turns back, and heads towards the shore. She can tell how worried Kyungsoo is, standing up at the edge of the towels, but when he finally sits down, she resumes her play, just enjoying the water. 

She takes a deep breath and dives down deep, kicking her feet to get towards the bottom. It’s not covered in sand but rocks, little fish scuttling along although not away from her. There are plants that dance with the current of the water, little squids, seaweed that’s simply drifting along towards the shore, pieces of wood and trash stuck in between the rocks. It’s riveting, and Junhee swims closer to it to see it better.

Something in her whispers, you’re home now. And as the energy inside her bubbles up once more, she’s not terrified. She just lets it go, lets it happen, and realizes it’s connecting her to the water around her- it’s like the water is suddenly her friend, an embrace that carries her, a warm touch all around her. She sighs in content and takes in a breath without thinking- and her lungs fill up with air, not with water. She’s not drowning, she’s breathing. 

It doesn’t even alarm her. She giggles, pleased, and swims forward, towards the shore, exploring, high on how happy she is to be welcomed here and to be allowed to explore as she wants. There are so many neat things in the water to see and to touch. The waters are a bit murky, but it doesn’t bother her. It feels right, it feels natural. Everything is as it should be.

She would take something home with her, to keep as a memory of this place. But she knows that none of it could thrive in a city environment; it would lose its enchantment so quickly, dry up on land and be stripped down of its true beauty. She couldn’t do that, although maybe… maybe the rocks wouldn’t mind. Maybe that wouldn’t be too greedy of her. She kicks her legs, swims along, getting even further towards the shallow waters, too occupied with how much fun she’s having. 

She’s completely forgotten that a world above the surface exists. 

Suddenly, a pair of arms wrap around her to lift her up, and she swallows down water on accident, her chest constricting as she’s hauled out of the water like her lungs have forgotten how to breathe in air all of a sudden. It hurts, it hurts, and she’s being dragged across the rocks and the sand at the shallow waters, her body fighting to breathe properly again. She’s finally put down at the edge of the water where the waves lap at her toes, on her back, but before she can do anything someone grabs her by the chin and nose and presses their lips to hers, forcibly blowing air into her. Her lungs fight it at first and she thrashes around to try and throw the person off her, but then just like that, something clicks into place and air begins to flow freely once more.

Junhee coughs and she’s rolled onto her side as she hacks up some of the water she accidentally swallowed, the taste on her tongue a mixture of dirt, salt, and blood. Someone smacks her on the back a couple of times and the coughs subside quickly like so. She struggles to sit up properly, overwhelmed and confused, not understanding the situation yet. 

“What the hell happened?” Kyungsoo is crouched right in front of her, and so is Chanmi who’s obviously crying. There are some other tourists as well, gathered around them, all looking shocked, if not horrified. They’re all looking at her, eyes wide, and the grip Kyungsoo has on her shoulder is almost bruising while Chanmi continues to sob. 

“I don’t… I don’t know…” Junhee whispers, still utterly frazzled. What happened, indeed? She tries to brush her unruly hair away from her face, tries to wrap her head around this all.

“Are you alright, eonni? Are you alright?” Chanmi kneels down on the sand and scoops Junhee into a tight hug, rocking her body back and forth. “You scared us so bad, you weren’t coming to the surface and then we saw you floating near the shore and… and we thought…” 

She cannot finish her sentence, before her voice breaks and she just cries into Junhee’s hair. Kyungsoo doesn’t look much better off, shoulders tense and lips pressed together, clearly trying to hold back his emotions to appear strong for his girls. Junhee feels so awful- she feels guilty. She knows this is her fault. 

The energy, it has once more lowered in intensity after being used for something. It’s almost gone, for now, although she can still feel the strange connection to the sea that she had when she was swimming, the same connection that kept calling out to her. But to think that it allowed her to breathe underwater… It is one thing to have this strange new power alter the world around her, to an extent at least, but totally another to have it also change her body and its abilities. It changed the very way her body works, to make her able to breathe… Her head is spinning. This is just too much to take in. 

She simply lets Kyungsoo take charge in taking them to their Airbnb. It’s easier not to speak; she doesn’t know how she could even begin to explain what happened. There is no logical explanation, and she knows she can’t tell her partners the truth. So far, they’re not pressing for answers either, just focused on wrapping her up in the towels and getting her to their rental car to take her home. 

Junhee just allows it to happen, lets them take care of her, fuss over her. She knows it’s important to them, to make sure she’s alright, to be able to calm down themselves. She showers with Chanmi’s help to wash away the salt from her hair and skin, and discovers the scrapes she got when Kyungsoo dragged her out of the water. But she doesn’t complain; again, this is all her fault.

Kyungsoo insists on putting her to bed and Junhee is once again docile, letting them have their way. She’s bundled up after Kyungsoo cleans up her scrapes and cuts, and Kyungsoo prepares them some tea to drink while they all cuddle in bed in silence. Junhee does her best to placate them both, offering them all the kisses they want, all the I love yous they need, wiping away Chanmi’s tears and letting Kyungsoo grip her hand as tightly as he wants. 

But eventually, the question needs to be asked. “What happened?” Chanmi asks from where she’s resting her head on Junhee’s shoulder. “You’re such a good swimmer. What went wrong?”

Junhee has never been a good liar. She learnt how to lie about her eating disorder, about the weight she’s lost and the amount of food she’s eaten, but never about anything else. But lie she must, and fast. She could say she hit her head, but Kyungsoo would probably insist on taking her to the hospital to have it looked at, and that would blow her cover so fast. But what else is there?

“I don’t… I’m not quite sure,” she replies quietly, gripping her tea mug tighter. “I was swimming and I heard Kyungsoo yell at me because I was getting too far away, so I turned around and I decided to dive… But I don’t know, I don’t remember. Maybe it was a current that held me down too long and I blacked out or something.” 

“There shouldn’t be any strong currents there,” Kyungsoo murmurs. He, too, has his head on Junhee’s shoulder now, for once looking his age instead of years older. “That’s so irresponsible, to open a beach to a location like that. What if you hadn’t drifted towards the shore like you did…” 

Junhee has a feeling that this will haunt Kyungsoo for a long time to come. He’ll think he did something wrong, that he was inadequate in protecting her, that he should have done better research and selected another beach. And she knows this will haunt Chanmi too- in her dreams, in her mind. She’s so sensitive and so caring, and she will probably be brought to tears in the days to come just with the thought of possibly losing her girlfriend to the sea. Once more, Junhee berates herself; why did she let that happen, why did she let herself get carried away like that? She should have gotten more alarmed, she should have been scared, not excited. 

The rest of the evening is quiet. They don’t have the energy to go out or do anything, and instead just eat at the house. Junhee feels even worse for it, but she knows that she can’t get Kyungsoo and Chanmi out of the house. They’re emotionally so drained, and all they need right now is time to recover. Her horrible guilt only grows tenfold being treated like an ailing patient by both of them, but she lets them do as they want, just to ease their worries. Give them something purposeful to do.

The next day, she has a hard time getting the mood back to where it was, but somehow they manage to have a good final day on the island before they fly back home in the evening since they have to make it to work the next day. But Junhee can’t help but feel like the vacation did not help her relieve much stress, if any at all, because now she has even more questions about the strange changes taken place inside her, somewhere hidden, out of sight. Because whatever it is, it’s not under her control, and she has no way of predicting what it will do next. That’s dangerous- it hasn’t hurt her yet, but how could she know that it won’t ever happen? 

But she has no one to turn to. There’s just nothing she can do. But one thing she doesn’t quite understand is why now. Why is this all happening now? What invited all this into her life? It makes no sense, and the more she thinks about it, the more confusing it all gets. 

She stares at herself in the mirror that night, searching into her own eyes. But she sees nothing- there’s nothing there, nothing new. It’s just her. Her, as usual. But somewhere, deep down… There’s something bizarre going on, taking root. The word ‘monster’ crosses her mind, and it hurts, but she rejects it immediately. That cannot be it- although how would she know? How would she know anything about this, except that it comes and goes, it grows and it fades when it gets used, but what it is, she doesn’t know. 

She thought she got her life back through recovery, she thought she would finally be free from things coming from within her. But now… she’s not so sure. She recovered, but now she’s losing her life to something else. But she doesn’t want to. She doesn’t want to give up her freedom. 

She will fight this, any way she can.


	3. Chapter 3

Despite her determination to not let this new phenomenon emerging from within her take over her life and ruin it for her, it’s a lot easier said than done. This new energy, it obeys no one, and least of all her. The spikes in energy also come more frequently now, boiling and bubbling over more and more often, and things only barely stay under her control. She comes close to being caught red handed a few times, and although most of the things that occur are delightful, this still freaks her out. 

One day she discovers she can make waves happen in the bathtub, and that she could control the bath water temperature at will. That was quite neat and also pretty fun, until she almost burned herself when she spaced out and allowed the water to get too hot. She felt like a frog being boiled alive for a moment, before she got the situation back under her control, and the energy slowly trickled out of her like it’s prone to do. 

A few days later, Junhee creates a whirlpool in the sink when she’s doing the dishes. It’s quite a dangerous thing, as it throws the cups, mugs, and plates around in the sink, and she’s sure she’s going to break something if she can’t get it to stop. It also sloshes water all over, and makes the soap bubble up like crazy, which makes the whole ordeal extremely messy. But it is quite of fun, even if a tad stressful. But she supposes it does help with washing the dishes a little, so that’s something.

Once, she makes water boil in a pot without even turning the stove on. She doesn’t do it on purpose- she just gets sidetracked while she’s in the kitchen, just spacing out in front of the stove as she’s making tea. But she doesn’t realize she forgot to turn the stove on and so she’s just absently staring at it, waiting for it to boil. She jumps back in surprise when it suddenly does- it never gets so hot so fast. Her bewilderment only grows as she realizes that the gas is not even on, and the water is still boiling away, splashing over the edges of the pot almost. She quickly does the backwards counting trick to get the energy to disconnect, and the boiling slows down, leaving her with her tea water now prepared. Her hands are shaky as she pours it into her tea cup, although she does feel kind of accomplished. 

It’s little instances like this that keep her on her toes, and keep her wondering. There has to be answers to this, there has to.

As she’s watching a Harry Potter movie with Chanmi one night, she realizes that the things that keep happening to her are kind of similar to what goes on in the movie. It’s a strange parallel to take notice of, but it oddly fits. It’s the biggest clue she’s got so far, and she’s gotten so curious that she’s ready to grasp at straws at this point. 

But how does one look into magic? She ponders about this, but obviously she has no idea. She thought magic wasn’t real- she thought it only belonged in her manhwa books, in movies and fairytales. But nonetheless… Nonetheless she has found herself in a situation that resembles quite a few manhwa stories she’s read, now that she thinks about it. It excites her, somewhat. She’s always dreamed of experiencing a grand old adventure like the girls she reads about, and now she has one waiting for her. If only she knew where to start. 

She starts her search in the local library, but comes up empty handed. All books that mention the word magic are meant for children, or they’re just plain old fantasy novels. There’s nothing in there that would help her, which she kind of expected but it’s disappointing nonetheless. She goes home feeling a bit defeated, although cuddling up to her soft girlfriend and loving boyfriend soothes that away. 

Her partners seem to have noticed that something’s up with her. “You’re so bubbly lately,” Chanmi comments as she watches Junhee dance across the floor on her way to the bathroom to wash up before bed. “Just so… so bright and gorgeous. I really love it.” 

“You’re such a sap,” Junhee says fondly, although she can’t help but tiptoe back to Chanmi and kiss her on the mouth, solid and warm. “I’ve just… had so much energy lately.” 

“I can tell,” Chanmi laughs, and wraps her arms around her middle to lift her up and then put her back down. “And I adore it. Happy Junhee eonni is the best.” 

“You make me happy,” Junhee replies with, granting Chanmi another kiss. “Now go, hurry to bed, before Kyungsoo gets lonely. I’ll be right there, after I wash up.” 

It would be nice to be able to share fully what’s been happening, but Junhee doesn’t know how to approach the topic. Besides… she doesn’t want to shatter the happy bubble they’ve been wrapped up in for the past few weeks. She’s troubled them enough with her worries in the past. This one can wait. 

Since the library proved to be useless, she tries her luck with internet next. But as expected, the internet is not particularly helpful. The search word ‘magic’ brings up so many results that it’s impossible to weed through them all to get to anything even remotely useful. It’s again a lot of fantasy stuff, a lot of role play, or a Wikipedia page for black magic. Magicians for hire to perform at parties, easy magic tricks for beginners, magic 8 balls. And while all of that is riveting, it’s not helpful. She spends days looking though, trying different combinations of words, any at all that apply to her situation, but nothing comes up. The term is just too broad, and the internet too deep. She would have to know exactly what she’s looking for in order to find it.

But her searching leads her to one peculiar website. At first, she’s apprehensive of how it could be of any use… but it’s her only lead to someone who could be considered a professional in the topics of magic, spirits, and otherworldly powers. 

She finds herself on a shaman’s homepage. 

Now, she’s not a complete stranger to shamans. They’re not as common as they used to be once upon a time, but it’s still easy enough to find their little practices in Seoul, if one isn’t fooled by the seemingly Buddhist signs and names written at the front. It’s all a lie- inside awaits a real, breathing shaman, who has very little to do with Buddhism no matter how you look at it. 

She also knows that a lot of women turn to shamans even in the present day, even if it’s unspoken and out of sight. It’s usually the last resort for those who don’t know what else to do, or who have been driven mad with grief and need a bridge to reach those who have moved on to the afterlife. A lot more people turn to them than would ever admit to it, because there’s a bit of stigma around it, especially in the strictly Christian communities. But Junhee’s family is Buddhist, and she knows that her mother would go and visit a shaman if the need would ever arise. And she wonders if a shaman might indeed be able to help her, too. 

Junhee is skeptical about it, but she has no other leads. So, she does her homework, and looks for reviews and recommendations for shamans online. She knows consulting with one can be quite expensive, and she’s only going to try this once. 

Shamans don’t practice magic, per say. They can summon spirits, converse with them and ask for favors, and they can communicate with the spirits of the dead, they dance and they sing. They can arrange healing rituals and such, but even in those, it’s the spirits that make everything happen. Although while possessed, a shaman can do a great number of amazing feats- walk on glowing embers, walk on knives, kill chicken with their bare teeth. It’s really not the kind of thing Junhee has been doing, but again… it’s the closest she can get. 

And so, she arranges to meet a shaman lady and her apprentice one day, once again keeping it secret from Kyungsoo and Chanmi. Junhee would gladly take them with her because she does have this ominous feeling about the whole ordeal, but she just can’t find the words to explain this. She’s going to face this alone. 

The shaman is located in Incheon, close to the seaside, which to Junhee seems like a sign. Whether it’s good or not, she’s not sure, but she hasn’t forgotten the mysterious pull of the sea had on her in Jeju. Perhaps the sea is guiding her here, too. Travelling that far out, though, it takes a good hour, jumping from the subway to a bus that weaves along the narrow roads into somewhere that almost seems rural in comparison to Seoul. The buildings are old, the highest ones only three stories high, the cars are older and dirtier, and there are hardly any young people walking down the streets. Junhee supposes that to someone else, this might feel nostalgic- but she grew up in Apgujeong in Seoul, so she wouldn’t know. 

She hops off the bus, and still has to walk a little bit to get to the address she was given when she called to make sure the shaman would be there that day. And as she expected, it almost looks like any other store on that street, the Buddhist names and symbols at the front and also advertisements for divination and other fortunetelling as well. But she’s not here for any of that. She gathers all of her courage, and pushes the door open to enter the shop. 

It’s dim inside, and at first it’s hard to see. There’s a low table and cushions to her right and it looks like an area for just simply sitting down and drinking tea. To her left, there’s a big closet, and she can only guess what it might hold inside it; costumes, trinkets for rituals, instruments, the whole nine yards. The walls are decorated with flowers and fabrics draped everywhere, the colors clashing and bright just how Junhee remembers seeing in pictures. There are also pictures of people, or perhaps deities, and scriptures on the walls as well, although she can’t see well enough to even say if it’s hangeul or hanja. 

At the front, there’s a low table that resembles an altar, although Junhee isn’t sure if that’s what it’s called. It’s empty now, save for the white cloth that covers it, and some empty brass dishes on top. But she knows that for a ritual, it would be filled with fruit and other offerings to appease the spirits. There are other tables at the sides, filled with miscellaneous items, but she doesn’t get to take a look before a woman appears from the back, eyebrows raised but not looking too surprised. Junhee is slightly confused to see the lady in regular clothes, before she realizes that of course the shamans only dress up when they’re doing rituals or something or the other, not when they’re just meeting people to talk like normal human beings. 

She bows down to say her greetings, and the woman just nods before turning back and disappearing once more. But she isn’t gone for long, and comes back with a whole tray of tea cups, a tea pot, and some traditional Korean snacks that she brings to the low table to the right.

“Mother will be right here, so just sit down comfortably.” 

Oh, so she’s just the apprentice. She does look young- well, young for a shaman, Junhee thinks. She’s maybe in her forties, although Junhee couldn’t be too sure. She has that kind of look about her that says she’s seen far more than she should have, and it’s her experiences that make her look older than her years.

The shaman arrives not long after, also dressed in regular clothes although her aura alone… it’s clear she’s someone special. Whether Junhee believes in her powers or not, it’s irrelevant. This woman is powerful and doesn’t need Junhee’s validation, none whatsoever. She’s short and looks quite old, but her eyes are sharp and piercing as she takes in Junhee while she comes to the table to sit down. 

The shaman apprentice pours them all tea, and for a moment there’s only silence. The tea is strong and tastes earthy, herbal, nothing that you can buy at a store, and Junhee has to hold back her grimace at the bitterness of it. Time ticks on, and not a word is said, yet there’s odd peace in that. This is a timeless place; outside, the regular world goes on, but inside here, everything stands still. This feels like a waiting room into the next world, just beyond reach.

“You said you have questions.”

The shaman has a husky voice, similar to that of a pansori singer. Junhee swallows and sets down her cup, folds her hands in her lap over her colorful skirt. She almost feels underdressed, under the shaman’s gaze. 

“Yes, ma’am, I do.” She knows people usually talk down to shamans, but she won’t. This woman is probably as old as her grandmother, she won’t disrespect her. “I… they’re strange questions, but I did not know who else to turn to.”

“I think I’ve seen everything there’s to see on this earth and even beyond it,” the shaman says dryly. “Go on, girl.” 

Junhee is still nervous to talk about it all out loud, but she knows that this could be her only chance. And the shaman is right- she’s seen everything there is, has heard it all. Even if she might not believe Junhee’s story to be true, she must believe in something. She should be the last person to at least doubt her sanity over this.

And so, she recounts every encounter with that strange energy she’s had. She describes how it feels, how it channels out of her, through her, into the world around her. How it makes these weird things happen for her, in her; breathing underwater, growing plants, controlling the heat of her bathwater, the floating glass. Neither of the women even make a sound as she speaks, staring at the table and their tea cups, but something about their postures makes it clear they’re listening. That they’re interested, even if they don’t verbally express it. Junhee finds a sense of calm in that, carefully telling everything she has to say until there are no longer words to be spoken. 

“But those were not questions. That was just a story.” The shaman sounds harsh almost, but there’s a glint in her eye that suggests she’s not angry. She’s coaxing more out of her, even if in a brutally honest manner. 

“I just wanted to know… what it is. I don’t understand it. What is it, where does it come from? How does it work? Can I control it? Like I said, I kind of know how to make it stop, but I’ve never been able to make it do anything… It just bursts out and does whatever. What… what is it? Is it magic?” 

There’s silence, again. The shaman still won’t look at her, but the apprentice is now looking at Junhee with focused eyes, searching. Junhee can’t hold her gaze for long, because it feels like she might see too much. Something Junhee isn’t ready to be made known to anyone. 

“It doesn’t sound like spirit illness,” the shaman speaks finally, smacking her lips thoughtfully. “It doesn’t sound like you’re being called by the spirits.” 

“What’s spirit illness, ma’am?” Junhee can’t help but lean forward, eager to hear more. Every bit of information is more than she came here with. 

“When the spirits want to call you to them, when they want to make you a shaman, they make you ill.” The shaman takes a measured sip from her cup. “They make you ill, until you go through the initiation and become a shaman. If you try to refuse them… they can try to kill you. It almost happened to her. Show the young girl what they made you do.” 

She points to her apprentice who tilts her head back. At first Junhee is just confused, doesn’t get it- but then she realizes that there’s a long scar on the woman’s neck, going around the front of it from side to side. She can’t hold back her gasp, her hands flying up to her mouth in shock when the realization hits, when she understands what the scar means. 

“She did that to herself, under the spirit illness. You can’t refuse the spirits, when they call you.” The shaman talks like she’s discussing the weather, and to her, this probably is just as natural. Junhee finds her hands shaking and clasps them together in her lap once more, tearing her eyes away from the poor woman. What she has gone through… Junhee doesn’t know if she believes in these spirits, but that is just too real. That is too real to be denied. 

“But you don’t think… you don’t think the spirits are calling me?” she asks, her voice shaky. The shaman shakes her head in response. “No. They’re not making you ill. But you haven’t fought it either, have you? You haven’t tried to make it disappear.”

Junhee shakes her head. “I don’t know how I would make it go away, even if I wanted to,” she admits. “So, do you know what else could it be?”

The old woman finally turns to her to make eye contact with her. She’s silent for a while, running her tongue over her teeth back and forth as she thinks. Or maybe she listens, or sees- Junhee can’t tell. 

“It’s pure magic,” she eventually says. “There’s nothing evil to it. It’s just pure power- pure power to do anything. It sounds like it relates to water somehow, since you described a strange pull you felt towards the ocean, and all of these things relate to water. Whether you use that for good or not, it’s up to you. But no matter what you do, do not reject it. Don’t shun it out. It will only turn against you, if you try that.”

Junhee isn’t sure if she should just blindly trust this woman, but yet at the same time… she knows that the things she’s experienced, magic is the only way to call it. It makes no sense, none at all, but there is no logical explanation to be had. 

“But why now?” she asks. “Why now, out of the blue? Why would I develop magical powers now?”

The shaman shrugs, and pushes her tea cup towards the apprentice who fills it up for her again. “Sometimes we can suppress our powers, even without knowing anything of them,” she answers after another sip. “Sometimes our bodies are too weak, sometimes our minds are too muddled. Were you weak before? Was your mind clouded and weak, too?”

And that- that strikes a chord. She was weak- weak from dieting and restricting, from excessive exercise and days of no food. Her mind was muddled with sick thoughts, with her mental illness that clouded everything but the obsession with weight loss and food. For years, her body and mind ached and suffered, and even though she moved through school, through work, through her life, it was always there, never-ending. Always at the back of her mind, always taking away all the energy that she could spare, leaving her with barely enough to function. 

And as soon as she recovered, as soon as she was freed from her eating disorder and quit her medication- these things started to occur. 

Junhee doesn’t think there are more answers to be had with the shaman anymore, because clearly she doesn’t know much of what is happening to Junhee. But she’s gotten some answers, although digesting all of that will be a challenge of its own. She thanks the two women profusely, and has the presence of mind to pull out her wallet from her purse and leave them some crisp 50,000 won notes. They never asked for payment for their services, but she thinks it’s an unspoken rule. They’ve helped her, she should give something back. She thanks them over and over again, bowing several times as she makes her way through the door, although neither of the women stand up to bid her goodbye.

Stepping through the door feels like a slap in the face, the contrast between the outside world and that strange place almost overwhelming. What she just saw, the things she just heard, they all seem surreal, yet there’s new found surety in her too. The two women took her seriously without any proof needed, they trusted her- everything she’s been going through is real. Real magic. 

Junhee has mixed feelings about that.

*****

The next logical thing to do is to begin experimenting. She cannot find any solid information on all this, she cannot talk to anyone else about it, so she must do her research on her own. The shaman mentioned water- that water is somehow connected.

The rest makes sense, except for the plants. How are the plants connected to water? Junhee stares at the innocent potted plants on the kitchen table, and wonders. They’re not water, they do not grow in water… She tries to channel her magical energy towards them, yet nothing happens. 

Slowly, she’s reached a point where the force is always present. It simmers, it moves through her, and sometimes it bubbles over. That’s when weird things happen, in the boiling point, when she’s so filled with it that it has to seek a way out, but she assumes that feeling the presence of it must mean something. That she could use it- if only she knew how.   
But the plants, they remain as they are. Nothing happens. What did she do differently last time? She narrows her eyes, and looks around the kitchen, trying to think of anything, anything that could be the key. But then, she spots the little watering can they have for the flowers.

She was watering the plants when she told them to grow big and beautiful- she was connecting them with water. The water carried her magic, and into the plants. 

She claps her hands in glee, so pleased to have had her eureka moment. Chanmi, who was playing her piano in the living room, suddenly stops playing mid song, clearly startled by Junhee’s sudden burst of joy. “Eonni?” she calls out. “What are you doing?”

“Ah, I- there were these cute puppies on Instagram, that’s all,” Junhee scrambles for a lie, and grabs her phone from the table just in time. Chanmi has already jumped up to her feet and runs over to the kitchen, looking hopeful and already smiling all enthusiastic. “Puppies? Show me!” 

Thankfully, Junhee follows several dog accounts on Instagram, and pulling up a cute puppy video isn’t hard at all. Chanmi coos and gushes about their cuteness over her shoulder for good five minutes, before she finally is able to go back to her instrument, and Junhee’s heart has never been fonder. Children and animals, the two biggest weak spots Chanmi has- they never fail to melt her into a puddle of goo. It’s so precious. 

Junhee has to wait for a day off to properly investigate her magical abilities, a day where neither Chanmi or Kyungsoo are going to be around because she doesn’t feel ready to try and explain yet. She’d rather know and understand the extent of her powers first, before trying to include anyone else in her little secret. She wants to be able to prove it to them, prove that it’s all real, and what if her powers fail her at the critical moment? 

Staying in the apartment feels a bit risky, because she doesn’t know how out of control things could get. What if she breaks something, or does actual damage to the apartment? A flooded apartment in the seventh floor would not be easy to explain to their landlord. But going outside has even more risks, mainly the chance of being seen. Junhee has seen enough superhero movies to be afraid of a secret government agency in charge of keeping magic a secret from the general public, and doesn’t want to take her chances with being dragged to a testing facility as a specimen. Admittedly, this seems like a silly thing to even consider but she’d rather be safe than sorry. Indoors it is.

When her opportunity finally comes, she’s already planned out some tests she’d like to try. She’s almost impatient for Kyungsoo and Chanmi to leave the apartment, something she remembers feeling last when she was still actively trying to lose weight and restrict her eating; being left alone in the apartment was something she impatiently looked forward to, because then she could do all the obsessive exercise she wanted. It’s been so long since then that it feels odd to feel that same impatience again, even if for a vastly different reason. It sits ill with her, bringing back bad memories, but she shuts those out with determination. Now is not the time to dwell. 

She kisses them both goodbye at the door and wishes them both a good day at work. Junhee tries to be smart about this though, and sits down on the couch to wait for thirty minutes to pass before she sets up her experiments. There’s no telling if Kyungsoo or Chanmi would come back home to get something they forgot, and she can’t have that. Sitting around and waiting is so, so hard, and staring at the clock like this also reminds her of her worst eating disorder days. She had schedules for when she’d allow herself to eat, and waiting for the time to pass was sometimes excruciatingly painful. Just waiting for the minutes to tick by, focusing on breathing, pushing her self-control to its absolute limit. This feels exactly like that, and it makes anxiety bubble up in her throat. A part of her yearns to call Kyungsoo or Chanmi and talk to them, let them talk her down from this bad feeling, but she’d rather not upset them; she hasn’t been triggered by anything related to her eating disorder, so she could not explain what brought this on so suddenly. 

She just doesn’t want them to ever have to worry. 

At last, it’s show time. Junhee goes over to the bathroom, because it’s the most waterproof area in the apartment. Even if she splashes around with water, it won’t do any damage to anything- hopefully. She closes the door and makes sure to put away anything that could fall and break from the counter and the shelves, as well as folding away everything that shouldn’t get soaked wet. Despite Kyungsoo’s best efforts to keep everything tidy, clearing everything out takes a good long while, and now Junhee can feel her anxiety mixing with her magic. It’s bubbling up, coiling tighter in the pit of her tummy, waiting for a chance to burst out. 

With a deep breath, she grabs one of the plastic cups they have for brushing their teeth, and fills it up with water. She sets it carefully down on the counter, and she can feel how her heart is starting to beat faster. This is the first time she’s ever purposefully tested her abilities, and it’s one part scary one part exciting. Maybe nothing will happen- maybe things will get out of her control. 

But she’s too curious to back down now. 

She exhales, rolls her shoulders back, before focusing on the water in the cup. At first, there’s nothing. The magic inside her is swirling around but decidedly not interested in doing anything, dormant even if slightly restless. Even though Junhee is directing her focus towards the liquid, the magic doesn’t follow her lead. Her mind and her magic are not functioning as one, perhaps due to a lack of training. 

“I want to lift up that water, up and out of the cup,” she says out loud, even if it feels a bit silly. But it worked with the plants, did it not? Don’t spells exist for a reason, to direct magic where it’s needed? This is not a spell, though, just a simple statement, but it’ll have to do. 

She can feel a slight tug on the mass of magic, a peak of interest perhaps, but it doesn’t flow out of her yet. She takes in a deep breath, exhales through her mouth, and tries again. “Rise, water,” she tries, wording it more simply now.

It works. It works almost too well- the magic bursts forward with way too much force, and the water shoots out of the cup and splashes into the ceiling, splattering down on Junhee who shrieks and lifts up her arms in a futile attempt to shield herself from the droplets. There’s tension in the air now, an open question, although her focus now gone, the magic retreats once more, probably deeming its job done. 

Cautiously, Junhee stands up straight again. A thought crosses her mind- a new idea. She licks her lips, and weighs her words carefully. 

“The splashed water, evaporate. Dry off.” 

She can’t hold back her hiss as the water turns to steam on her skin and hair with no warning, straining her magic only so slightly. It burns, the water turning extremely hot as it evaporates, although luckily it leaves behind only slight skin irritation. Well- she’ll call that a partial success. 

Junhee refills the cup, and tries again. And again, and again. Turns out, learning magic isn’t as easy as it sounds- she’s watched enough of Harry Potter, she should have known this, but somehow she thought that it might come to her as naturally as swimming and breathing underwater did. That isn’t the case however, as the water keeps splashing about wildly when she uses too much focus and force, and sometimes it barely ripples in the cup if she doesn’t use enough. Figuring out the right ratio is a tricky thing to do, and surprisingly exhausting. It almost feels like working out, although the muscles that are tired and sore aren’t actually physical; the ache and exhaustion are there, but just impossible to pinpoint. The magic doesn’t disappear, she can still feel its presence, but it’s less bright and vivid than when she started. 

Her plan was to move on to more exciting things than just levitating water out of a plastic cup, but it’s all she can manage that day. After what feels like hours of rigorous effort and frustration, she finally gets the water out of the cup in controlled manner, and gets it to float in front of her, over the sink, for a few seconds before it either shoots up to the ceiling or falls down with a splash. 

It’s not impressive, but it’s progress. 

It really is like flexing a muscle, building up strength, but it’s also practicing and developing new skills. It’s draining on her body and mind alike, and not as rewarding as she’d like it to be. But she keeps at it, practicing with the cup of water whenever she has a moment alone. Slowly it gets easier and easier to manipulate the water exactly how she wants to, make it levitate that much longer, keep it right where she wants it. A bit more work, and she can make the ball of water fly around, separate it into smaller drops, and then play with those in the air. Her magic gets stronger; it runs out slower, it’s more controlled, and the presence of it feels that much more powerful. it’s more and more present every day, becoming a part of her that feels as though it’s always been there. 

When she tires of these tricks, when she’s fully mastered everything she can think of doing with droplets of water floating around the bathroom, she moves onto new challenges. She plays with the bathwater, making waves and bending it to her will, and again, the learning curve is steep. 

More often than not, most of the water ends up on the floor, or on the walls, although at least she masters the art of cleaning it up that way as well. She also practices breathing underwater, submerging herself in the bathtub, and learns that breathing in soapy water is not a good idea. Turns out, it burns and feels quite awful in the lungs and throat, even if she can still make it work. Also the bubbles she keeps coughing up for hours afterwards are kind of suspicious, and almost get her into trouble with Kyungsoo and Chanmi as well.

But it’s fun. It’s exciting, it’s a new challenge every day. Junhee really treasures her powers, and is eager to discover more and more. 

Finally, she can even shape the water in the tub at will like molding clay, making sculptures out of it as she bathes, letting her mind wander and just play as it will. Watching the water move in front of her, feeling it bend to her desires, there’s something relaxing about it. It’s not even tiring anymore- her magic handles this challenge with ease now. It’s leaps and bounds of progress from where she started with the cup of water just a few weeks ago. 

There are some more practical applications as well, which Junhee discovers when the monsoon season begins. Usually, the monsoon season means wet shoes and socks, ruined hair and makeup, and added discomfort with the heightened humidity on top of the already humid Seoul summers, but her power over water relieves some of that. She can dry off her shoes within seconds, and also soon discovers she can also deflect water away from her. It makes her almost waterproof, like she’s protected by a force field of some kind; sure, it’d look suspicious otherwise, but under her umbrella she can pretend that it’s the device keeping her dry and not her magical powers. 

It becomes almost second nature, to just use her magic at will, without thinking. As if it had always been there. 

Kyungsoo has a terrible tendency to fall ill during the monsoon season. He says it’s the wet feet that are to blame, although Chanmi and Junhee go to great lengths to make sure he has nice, waterproof shoes to walk in, and remind him to have a change of shoes to wear when he’s in the office so he’s not wearing his outside shoes all day at work. But it never works, and Kyungsoo gets sick every single year like clockwork. 

It feels awful, seeing their unwavering pillar of strength so weak and exhausted, and it never gets any easier. On Monday, Kyungsoo mentions feeling under the weather during breakfast, the rain coming down harshly already. He’s visibly quite exhausted when he gets home from work that evening. Junhee urges him to take a nap while her and Chanmi prepare dinner, and unlike his typical self, he agrees to the idea and goes to bed willingly. It seems to work though, and he gets up from his nap looking and feeling better.

“Maybe I just slept poorly,” he muses as they eat in the living room. They have a movie on as background noise, although they’ve all seen it several times already and don’t pay much attention to it. “I’ll go to bed early tonight, that’ll fix it.”

“A good rest usually solves a great deal of problems,” Chanmi chimes in, although shares a look with Junhee that says she’s worried about their boyfriend. Kyungsoo is good at masking his problems, hiding them when he feels that it would be too tough on his girls to deal with them. They’ve slowly made progress with that, slowly gotten him to understand that it doesn’t work like that, but old habits sometimes die hard.

On Tuesday, Kyungsoo is faring much worse. He was coughing through the night and he has a blocked nose in the morning. He still gets up early though, to cook breakfast as usual, to prepare Junhee her smoothie like always, and comes in to wake up his girls with loving touches even though it’s blatant on his face how bone tired he is.

“You should call in sick,” Junhee suggests, brushing his hair back gently as they sit at the dining table to eat. “You’re dead on your feet. Don’t go to work today, just rest. You’re going to be too sick tomorrow to go in anyway.”

“This is gonna pass with just some tea and ginseng,” Kyungsoo mutters, his voice huskier than normal. Junhee suspects his throat is sore, too, but of course he won’t say it. “Don’t worry about it.”

“But I do worry.” Junhee leans in and presses tender kisses on his temple, over and over again. His skin feels hot against her lips- he might not be running a fever yet, but it won’t be long now. Chanmi is pouting on the other side of the table, the silent emotion in her eyes making it hard for Kyungsoo to lift up his head no matter how much he wants to pretend everything’s alright. “And Chanmi does too. You’re clearly not well.” 

“I’ll eat some juk for lunch,” Kyungsoo says, and turns his head to brush his lips to Junhee’s cheek. “It’s gonna be just fine.”

“If you say so.” Junhee isn’t convinced, but she also knows that she’s not going to win an argument with stubborn Kyungsoo. Not when he’s so adamant on something. Chanmi doesn’t stop sulking though, constantly pouting at Kyungsoo and begging him to call in sick, but it doesn’t work. Kyungsoo is immune, even if obviously feels bad for making Chanmi upset. But he does leave for work, as per usual, together with Chanmi.

Junhee gets a text from Chanmi while she’s at work. 

[ txt ] why is he allowed to take care of us when we feel bad but we can’t do the same for him  
[ txt ] it’s unfair ☹   
[ txt ] he’s gonna be sick as a dog isn’t he  
[ txt ] should we have juk for dinner as well?

It does make her chuckle, even if there’s truth to what Chanmi is saying.

[ txt ] yeah I’ll bring the ingredients and text my mom for a fool proof recipe or something  
[ txt ] poor boy   
[ txt ] he’s stubborn as a mule though   
[ txt ] but don’t worry there’s no way he could get out of bed tomorrow 

Junhee’s prediction proves to be accurate. That evening, Kyungsoo is stumbling on his feet when he walks through the door, and his eyes are bleary, his skin clammy. Chanmi looks so upset, trailing behind him and ushering him towards the bedroom.

“He has a fever,” she informs Junhee gloomily. “But he still tried to insist that he should cook dinner for us.”

Kyungsoo has the decency to look sheepish, at least. “Fine, I’ll nap,” he grumbles, stumbling into the bedroom with Junhee and Chanmi not far behind. “Do your thing, mother hens.”

“We sure will,” Chanmi snaps. “Take off your work clothes, and I’ll bring you medicine. Eonni already got started on juk, so you’ll eat it after you’ve slept.” 

Kyungsoo mutters something under his breath, but does as he’s told, shimmying out of his suit and snuggling under the covers. Chanmi and Junhee are both just relieved that he finally allows them to care for him like they’ve been wanting to, and waste no time in doing anything and everything they can think of that could make him feel better.

Both Junhee and Chanmi has to leave for work the next day, a fact that makes them both quite uneasy. They’d rather not leave their sick boyfriend behind, but calling out of work for this isn’t a viable option. Kyungsoo is grumpy and tells them to just go, he’s going to be just fine, although judging by the fact that he doesn’t insist on getting out of bed to eat his breakfast already speaks for how ill he feels. 

It feels strange, to have to make her own breakfast smoothie. She never has, not in all these months- she’s technically off her meal plan now, free to eat whatever she wants for as long as she’s not restricting again, but the smoothie has stayed. It’s been a safe routine, something to look forward to and something to rely on, especially because she still doesn’t want a warm breakfast. Also having Kyungsoo make it for her… it just makes it special. Having to do it on her own isn’t the same. 

Chanmi notices, though- she reads people too well, especially her partners. She’s busy heating up soup on the stove but leaves that be to take over the smoothie prep from Junhee. “Let me,” she insists kindly, leaning in to kiss Junhee long and slow. “I’ve watched him do it so many times, I know how to make it. Just set the tray for Kyungsoo, yeah?” 

It makes Junhee so emotional, and her heart double in size with love for her sweet, loving girlfriend. 

They leave Kyungsoo home after making sure he ate some of the juk for breakfast, had all of his medicine close by with water bottles and snacks, and his laptop on the bed with him as well so he could watch something in between naps. It doesn’t feel right to abandon him like this, but it’s the only choice they have.

Junhee tries not to text him too often, so he could sleep, although the temptation is there. She wants to know how he’s doing, every hour of the day, and she knows Chanmi feels the same way. Work hours never pass this slow- she can’t help staring at the clock, counting down the hours, and it feels like the day just won’t end.

She wonders if this is how Chanmi and Kyungsoo used to feel. If this is how much they worried about leaving her alone, when she was at her lowest. If they felt this anxious and restless, knowing she was out of their sight and out of their care, even if just for a few hours. And she feels guilty, guilty for putting them through it all.

They of course new about her problems even before they all moved together. It wasn’t something she could hide, not from them, not when every meal was such a struggle to her. They knew about it, but probably didn’t realize the full extent of it before they all moved into one apartment. There, she could not hide anything. She couldn’t lie, make up stories about meals she never ate, or hide food in the trash without someone finding out. It was all laid out in the open, painfully so, for them to see- something she never wanted to happen, yet couldn’t stop it either. 

It was difficult six months leading up to her finally agreeing to treatment, but without it, she would not be where she is now. She just feels awful that Kyungsoo and Chanmi had to do so much for her just to get her back on her feet.

Finally, her shift is over, and she rushes out immediately. She texts Chanmi to tell her she’s on her way home so she knows she can be more at ease, and almost runs to the subway to get home faster. For once, the rain has stopped, but she doesn’t even enjoy it as she’s just so determined to get home.

It’s eerily quiet in the apartment when she enters. She can’t hear anything from the bedroom, and even when she calls out for Kyungsoo, there’s no answer. Junhee barely has the patience to kick off her shoes before running towards the bedroom, her heart in her throat, suddenly unreasonably paranoid for her boyfriend despite the fact that he texted her back less than two hours ago when she last checked up on him. 

Kyungsoo is there, sleeping, curled up in the middle of the large bed. His breathing is shallow and as Junhee gets closer, she can see how there’s sweat beading up on his brow. He looks uncomfortable, quiet coughs shaking him every once in a while even though it’s not enough to wake him. Perhaps he took enough medicine to knock himself out. Carefully, Junhee places her hand on his forehead to feel his temperature, alarmed to realize how hot to the touch his skin is. 

Junhee isn’t the most caring person, so she does feel a bit at a loss as to what to do but she knows she needs to keep moving, needs to do at least something even if it’s just to make herself feel useful. She gets up and adjusts the AC so that it’s not blowing directly on the bed, and peels off Kyungsoo’s covers gently to replace them with another blanket that isn’t going to be damp against his skin. The thermometer is there on the bedside table, and she carefully lifts up his shirt to get it under his arm against his bare skin. 

As she waits for the thermometer, she gently runs her fingers through his hair. He’s so handsome, even like this; Kyungsoo has never been the flashy kind of handsome where everyone turns to stare at him, but he’s so good looking in an understated way. The firm set of his brows and jaw, his full lips and deep eyes, he’s breathtaking, and Junhee has always loved his firm body so much.

The thermometer beeps, and she pulls it out from under his arm. He’s almost at 41 degrees- that’s no good. That’s really worrisome, especially if it’s been that way for a while. Junhee bites her lip, nails lightly scratching over Kyungsoo’s scalp who only burrows down into the pillows more. What could she do? Wake him up and give him more medicine? But he’s probably already taken quite a lot of it…

Her thoughts drift to her magic, the steady current of it once again more present in her veins. Could she use her magic to help him cool down? Perhaps cover him in cool sheen of water. But it sounds like an unpractical idea. She doesn’t know how that would work, and if Kyungsoo were to wake up, that would be just… too much to explain. 

So then what?

Then, something crosses her mind.

Human bodies are largely water. Mostly water, in fact- she has forgotten the exact number, but it’s up there. Perhaps… perhaps she could… manipulate that water?

She did make the plants grow, just by watering them and talking to them. She didn’t touch them, didn’t do anything to them, except manipulate the water present in them. Why wouldn’t that apply to other organisms that also have water in them? Why wouldn’t that work?

It’s risky. Something could go wrong- horribly wrong. But she has gotten so much better with her magic, and Junhee just wants to help. She just wants to make Kyungsoo feel better. Her poor boyfriend. She’ll stop, if anything seems to be going wrong. She won’t let anything happen to him. 

She changes places so that she can gently lift his head into her lap, still running her hands through his hair. Perhaps the talking method is going to be the best- she doesn’t want to try and mess with the water directly, doesn’t want to risk turning it into ice in his body or something equally horrifying. 

“Please get better… please feel better,” she whispers quietly. “Please make the fever go away. Please heal. I just want you to get better… please don’t be sick anymore.” 

Her magic pushes and pulls, like it’s unsure of what to do. It understands her request, but doesn’t quite know what it should do. Junhee repeats her words like a mantra, and presses her hand on Kyungsoo’s forehead to make more direct contact with his skin.

“Please, make the fever go down. Please, feel better.” 

And then, she feels it. The steady current of magic, pouring out of her, into Kyungsoo. For a moment, that’s all that happens- Kyungsoo doesn’t move, nothing changes. It takes Junhee a while to realize that his skin below her palm has gotten less hot, slowly and gradually, the change so subtle that it’s hard to tell. Then, the stream of magic thins out before it breaks off completely- its work has been done, it seems, even if Junhee can’t see any change in Kyungsoo’s state.

Wanting to make sure that it did work, she takes the thermometer and wiggles it back in place. Kyungsoo still doesn’t stir, but the uncomfortable furrow on his brow has smoothed out, his breaths coming in deeper and slower, the first signs of him feeling at least a little bit more at ease.

When the thermometer beeps, it only reads 36.7 degrees. 

His fever is gone.

Junhee can’t quite believe it, yet at the same time she could dance with joy. She successfully healed him, took away his fever and hopefully the rest of his symptoms as well. She’s a healer- it’s the biggest accomplishment she’s made in her magic thus far. This is so huge, the implications are massive; who knows what she could heal with just her magic. 

It’s hard to sit still now, buzzing with excitement as she is, but as she moves to pull away she wakes Kyungsoo up. The man seems a bit startled, blinking his eyes up at Junhee who sinks back down to sit on the bed, Kyungsoo’s head still cradled in her lap.

“Hi there,” she says softly, brushing his hair away from his eyes. “How are you feeling? Sorry I woke you up.”

Kyungsoo clears his throat and licks his lips. “No, that’s fine,” he replies. “How… how long have you been home?”

“Not long,” Junhee admits, glancing at the clock. “I only got here less than an hour ago, I think. How do you feel? Any better?”

“Yeah.” Kyungsoo sounds surprised. “Yeah, I do. I took some medicine and then decided to take a nap… wow, I really do feel a lot better.”

“Your fever is gone,” Junhee tells him with a smile. “Maybe that’s why.”

She doesn’t know how to break the news to him- how to even approach the subject. She knows now more than ever that she will have to tell Chanmi and Kyungsoo both, but now is not the time.

“Maybe.” Kyungsoo rubs his hand over his eyes. “But my… throat feels better. My nose, my everything. That’s… super strange. But great. I was tired of being sick already.”

“Take it easy, now. Don’t push yourself too soon, alright?” Junhee slides out from beneath him to let him lay back down. “We don’t want to risk you feeling awful all over again. Chanmi is going to be home soon, we’ll cook dinner and then we’ll all cuddle in bed to watch whatever you want. She’s going to be so clingy, she’s been so worried about you all day.”

“Silly girls,” Kyungsoo sighs, although his eyes are just full of fondness. “Alright, I’ll be a good patient and stay put. But don’t hesitate to let me know if you need any help with the cooking.”

“Alright.” Junhee leaves him be. It must be a bit disorienting to wake up feeling so different from how he felt when he fell asleep. He’ll probably need a moment to come around.

But Junhee, she’s walking on clouds. There are no words to describe her excitement. She’s been quite fascinated by her powers for a while now, ever since the visit she paid to the shaman, carefully exploring the possibilities, but this is something totally different. This is huge- this is a real gift. She’s a healer, and who knows what she could do with that. The new possibilities this opens up, she can’t even imagine it all now.

For the first time ever, her magic is not something for her to fear, but something to celebrate. Discovering this new skill, she can’t help but feel thankful and proud. She’s accomplished something remarkable. Freak of nature or not, her powers are good, pure, useful. 

She cannot wait to discover more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The story of the shaman or rather shaman to be trying to cut her own throat is a real story of a real shaman from Korea. I didn't go much into detail about Korean shamans here because it's not super relevant to the story, but if you want to know more about it just read everything with a grain of salt. People tend to have their own biases when they write about it, so just be aware of that.


	4. Chapter 4

Kyungsoo gets back on his feet in record time after that. “It’s a real miracle recovery,” Chanmi muses as they lay together in bed. “I’ve never seen anyone get better that fast from such an intense flu.”

Junhee hides her smile against Chanmi’s back and the soft fabric of her t-shirt. Chanmi is cuddled in the middle for tonight, head nestled on Kyungsoo’s shoulder while Junhee is spooning her from behind. Junhee is quite tempted to say something- but while she doesn’t know how to break the big news to her partners, this can’t be the right time to do so. But resisting the temptation is hard. 

“It’s almost magical,” she quips, pleased with her own private joke. “But I’m just relieved you did. It wasn’t fun seeing you so ill and out of it.” 

“Yeah, I really didn’t want to stay in bedrest for any longer.” Kyungsoo chuckles, reaching over to squeeze Junhee’s fingers. “If there’s anything I truly hate, it’s being sick.” 

“You’re too hard-working,” Chanmi says with a yawn. “That, or you don’t trust us to be able to look after ourselves without supervision.” 

They all share a laugh. “That’s exactly the reason why.” Kyungsoo is probably only half joking about it. “You two claim to be adults, but I’m not quite convinced of it. You need someone to look after you, make sure you get to eat and find your clothes in this mess.”

Kyungsoo probably doesn’t even mean anything serious with his comment- they all know how much progress Junhee has made, how far she’s gotten. She wants to believe she’d eat healthily even if her partners weren’t there to oversee. But it’s so easy for that guilt to be brought back, to curl up in her shell of shame and self-hatred again. She sinks down lower, buries her face even more firmly in between Chanmi’s shoulder blades. “I do eat, even when you don’t tell me to,” she murmurs. “I’ve gotten better, you know that.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” Chanmi tries to turn around, but Junhee holds her down, arms and legs tense around her. She’s not particularly strong or anything, but neither is Chanmi, and she’s in a disadvantage in their current position. Junhee just really doesn’t want to face either of them right now. 

“We know you take care of yourself now.” Kyungsoo says what warmly, loaded with sincerity. He believes his own words. “You’ve made us both so, so proud. You’ve really recovered a lot faster than either of us thought possible, and you’ve kept up with it so diligently. I’ve never doubted you of cheating or lying to us, baby.”

Well- that isn’t exactly true, is it. Junhee has lied, has been lying probably even more than when she was still sick, but that’s something she can’t bring up now. But it does remind her that she really needs to set things straight soon.

“Eonni, you’ve been such a trooper.” Chanmi reaches behind her to pet Junhee’s head tenderly. “Even if you might have thought of giving up, you still haven’t. I’m so, so proud of you. You really dedicated your all to recovery, and you pulled through.”

“Yeah… thanks to you guys.” But probably also because she’s been so preoccupied with her newfound magical abilities that she hasn’t even had the presence of mind to think about restricting or dieting again. Her days have been so filled with exploring her magic that things like calories or obsessive exercise haven’t even really crossed her mind. They used to- they used to come to mind a lot, even at the last leg of her recovery process. It’s hard to forget information you’ve memorized, like the calorie content of each food item in the pantry, or how many calories any one exercise burns. It’s all automated in her brain, whether she likes it or not. But her magic, it has replaced all of those intrusive thoughts. It’s all she’s been focused on, ever since she got off her medication and the abilities started to present. 

“We could only help you, you had to do the hard part all on your own.” It’s something Kyungsoo says quite often, but Junhee still doesn’t quite believe him. But she doesn’t want to linger in this topic- it’s already making her emotional, and she doesn’t want that.

“Yeah well, at least it’s in the past now. And Kyungsoo is all well, too, so we can go back to living our lives as normal.” 

Her partners pick up on her ques, and allow the change in topic, directing the topic to what they could do that weekend now that Kyungsoo wasn’t bedbound any longer. A movie date or something simple like that- the monsoon season makes it hard to plan any outdoor activities, and they all think it wise to not push Kyungsoo too much yet. 

But Junhee also makes a promise to herself to finally reveal the truth to her boyfriend and girlfriend, setting her deadline on that weekend. This has been going on for too long, and she will eventually have to find a way to tell them. It’s not going to be easy and there’s no telling how they’ll react… but no matter what, it needs to happen. She can’t keep lying. She’s gotten good enough grip on her powers too, that she knows she can demonstrate them at will. 

It’s time.

*****

They do follow through with the movie date plan, heading to the cinema complex in Hongdae. There’s nothing sci-fi or fantasy playing, which is a bit of a bummer, but they settle for a Korean comedy instead. “We don’t watch any of those at home, so let’s make this a chance to explore something new,” Kyungsoo muses as they’re buying the tickets at the machine. “Do you guys want popcorn or something?” 

“And soda!” Chanmi exclaims. Junhee has a secret theory that she mostly watches movies for the snacks. 

So they get their snacks and drinks, and buckle down to watch the movie. Junhee finds it hard to focus, however, as she’s busy thinking about her plan to tell the truth about her abilities to her partners tonight. Not before they get home, of course- but just the thought of it has her on edge even hours beforehand. She knows she has to do it, she can’t chicken out, but the anxiety that’s building up is so, so difficult to bear. 

After the movie ends, they head out to a restaurant to eat. It takes a bit of walking and a bit of waiting in line to get food, as Hongdae is as busy as always; it’s a weekend, and so everywhere is just packed with people like them, spending time with their significant others or friends. But even the busy nightlife isn’t enough to take her mind off her approaching deadline, and she can tell that both Chanmi and Kyungsoo have realized she isn’t completely her usual self. They don’t bring it up, though, probably partially because Junhee makes a conscious effort to eat and drink as normal. They’d be sure to point it out if she wasn’t eating, whereas her still having appetite to them is a positive sign. Something that calms them, reassures them. 

Maybe in a year, maybe in two years, her appetite won’t hold so much sway over everyone’s mood and emotions. Junhee can only hope. 

“Do we want to go somewhere for drinks after this?” Chanmi asks tentatively when they’re finishing up their dinner of filled pork intestines. “Or should we just take the subway home?” 

She’s looking at Junhee as she says it, and Junhee is grateful she’s so attentive to her mood. That she’s offering her to end the night early, if she’s not comfortable or happy to be out. But for Junhee, it’s a dilemma; she doesn’t want to go home because it means she will have to finally fulfill her promise to herself, but she also knows that she’s not much fun right now and is ruining everyone else’s fun. 

“Let’s go home,” she says, trying not to sound too anxious about it. “We could grab some soju and snacks on the way, and have those at home. I think that would be fun. Trying to make it home when you’re tipsy isn’t my favourite thing in the world.”

“Noona is right,” Kyungsoo says as he stands up from the table, showing that he considers the decision to be final. “I’m not in a mood for a loud bar right now, anyway.”

“That’s because you’re never in a mood for anything loud, old man” Chanmi snickers, and has to dodge a well-aimed, sharp punch from Kyungsoo for her tomfoolery. 

The subway is thankfully quite empty, heading away from the party area, and the 7-Eleven nearest to their house provides them with everything they could ever need as far as snacks and booze go. But Junhee’s legs feel heavier with each block that passes as they near their apartment building inevitably; she feels so unprepared, so ill equipped for the conversation she has to initiate soon, and it makes tight knots wound up in her stomach. It also makes her magic restless, her moods affecting it the more and more in tune with her magical abilities she becomes. It’s like she’s building a bridge between two parts of her that should have always been connected but were forcefully separated, yet the added tireless circling of her magic in her veins only feeds into the uncomfortable anxiety in a vicious cycle. 

When they finally make it home, Junhee knows she needs to tackle this task fast or else she’s going to lose her courage. Rip it off like a bandaid, she tells herself. Corner yourself so you have to take the leap. 

“Guys… I have something I want to talk about,” she says when they enter the living room. Chanmi and Kyungsoo both turn to her in slight alarm, Chanmi with her eyes wide and Kyungsoo with his brows furrowed. “It’s… well I think it’s important and big but, nothing bad, please don’t worry.”

“Hard not to, after you announce it like that,” Chanmi says hesitantly as she sits down on the couch, the 7-Eleven bag still in hand. “But go ahead, babe. Whatever it is, I’m sure we want to hear it.” 

Kyungsoo sits down next to Chanmi, but Junhee decides to sit down on the floor, across from them, so that they’re separated by the coffee table. She’d love to seek comfort from them both, physical and emotional alike, but she thinks it better that she keeps her distance for now. She can’t say how they will respond, and she’d rather give them the time and space they need to take in this news. 

“This… is going to sound really strange.” There’s no way around that for sure. She squeezes her hands together in her lap, eyes on the coffee table. “It’s going to be a lot for you to accept and to believe. But I know… I know I will have to eventually tell you, and I think that I’ve already waited too long. I don’t like keeping secrets from you.” 

“Have you relapsed again?” Kyungsoo asks, bluntly, startling Junhee a little bit. But as his words fully register, she can smile and shake her head. 

“No, I haven’t. No such thing… But this thing, this might make an eating disorder relapse sound almost desirable…” 

She bites her lip and looks away again. The words are so simple to say, yet again- they’re anything but. This is nothing like confessing to her eating disorder, even when she did it for the first time. At that point, her admitting it was just a formality, as Kyungsoo and Chanmi both already knew the truth even better than herself. But she remembers feeling almost just as scared, and just as anxious. Scared of how her significant others would react to the ugly truth about her and the things she’s kept hidden from everyone for so long. 

But just like back then, she needs to take the plunge. 

“Remember… remember when we were in Jeju, and that… incident at the beach happened?” It’s a rhetorical question. Of course they remember. “I wasn’t completely honest to you back then. I wasn’t drowning, I didn’t hit my head or anything. Nothing happened- except I started to breathe underwater, and got so lost in having that much fun that I didn’t realize that I was making you worried.”

Junhee doesn’t even dare to look up now, doesn’t want to stop talking in fear of not being able to continue. “I know it sounds crazy. It is crazy. I didn’t want to tell you guys at first because I knew you’d think I had just gone insane- that I was hallucinating, seeing and feeling things that weren’t real. But since then, I’ve understood that it’s very real, and it’s now a part of me. I have magic, as crazy as it is. I have magic, and I can use it as I will.” 

There’s nothing but silence, and Junhee knows she will have to prove her words to be true. So she reaches for the bag that Chanmi placed on the coffee table, and pulls out one of the soju bottles they got. She cracks it open and places the bottle on the table. 

“I know this doesn’t sound real. I know it’s- it’s a lot. And I’m sorry that I have to, have to tell you guys something like this. But please just watch.” 

Mustering the focus required for this task isn’t easy, but also her anxiety makes it hard to direct her focus to where she wants it. Seconds pass as she focuses on the liquid in the bottle, but eventually she gets it to rise out of the bottle; it emerges like a snake, almost slithering out, rising into the air in a steady stream before she lets it just rest there, gathered into a ball, levitating in midair. The bottle is now empty, all of the liquid gathered in the air in front of her. 

As soon as the soju starts rising out of the bottle seeming on its own accord, both Kyungsoo and Chanmi gasp audibly and jump back, startled. Junhee doesn’t look at them until the soju has finally stopped moving, only lifting her gaze once her party trick is done. She’s so scared of what she’s going to see, in their eyes and on their faces. 

Chanmi is staring at the levitating liquid with wide, terrified eyes, her mouth agape in surprise, her hands gripping onto Kyungsoo’s arm and thigh like looking for support. She keeps glancing at Junhee and then back at the floating alcohol, clearly torn and unsure how to react. Kyungsoo is scowling, his shoulders tense and lips pursed into a thin line, more concerned than surprised. But neither of them say anything.

“I know this is a lot.” Junhee can’t say that enough. She lets the liquid slither back into the bottle, little by little, struggling with her focus to make sure none of it splashes anywhere, that she doesn’t lose control. She’s starting to get more upset now, still waiting for them to say something. “I know that… you might be scared. That you might feel like I’ve become a freak, or something. I hope… I hope this doesn’t change anything between us.” 

She can’t help the way her voice breaks at the end, and that seems to be what startles both Chanmi and Kyungsoo out of their stupor. “Oh babe- of course this doesn’t change anything between us,” Chanmi is quick to offer the emotional reassurance, like always. She lets go of Kyungsoo and reaches out for Junhee, gesturing for her to come closer. “You could grow a second head and I wouldn’t care- I love you all the same, always and forever. This is just… wow. Really something.” 

Junhee glances at Kyungsoo warily, but since he doesn’t make a move to stop her or to get away, she feels brave enough to get up from the floor and round the coffee table to get to Chanmi, to sit next to her and let her wrap her arms around her. She’s sniffling, trying to hold back the tears of both relief and upset. “I know it’s a lot, and it’s super unfair,” she says with a small voice, her head down. “We just got over my eating disorder, and now this… and this is a secret we cannot tell anyone, and I’m so sorry to burden you with this. I’m so, so sorry.” 

“It’s not your fault.” Chanmi tries to comfort her, stroking her head gently. “It’s not something you wanted, or did to us on purpose. I don’t… I don’t understand how or why this happened, but I’m sure it’s not your doing. Right, Kyungsoo? We’re not mad, right?”

Kyungsoo moves to bury his face in his hands, his elbows on his knees. It’s impossible to tell how he’s feeling or what he’s thinking, and everything in Junhee aches to reach over and touch, to promise him that it’ll be alright. But she understands that he needs the space, needs the time to think this over. Chanmi, she’s always been so quick to love and accept- but Kyungsoo takes longer to warm up to new things, his more cautious nature slow to acceptance, just as it’s slow to anger, slow to hate.

“I’m not mad,” he murmurs, still not looking up. “Just… really confused.” 

“It’s alright to be confused,” Junhee hurries to say. “I was, too. For a very long time. At first, it was just these weird things that kept happening- I made a glass float when I knocked it off the counter, I could make waves in the tub when I was bathing, I made plants grow. And then the whole thing in Jeju… I felt the ocean calling for me, my powers are related to water so I guess that’s why, and when I went swimming, I felt like I had just come home. Like that was where I was meant to be. And suddenly, I could breathe underwater.” 

“That’s so cool,” Chanmi says with a small grin. “What else can you do? Is it all water related?” 

“Yeah, my magic uses water as its… material of sorts, I guess.” Junhee glances at Kyungsoo again before carrying on, although he remains unmoving still. “I can control water in anything that has it, so things like plants… and humans. I cured Kyungsoo’s cold with magic.”

This makes Kyungsoo look up, eyes almost comically wide. “You- you used magic to heal me?” he asks. “How?”

Junhee can’t say if he’s angry with her or not, and his sudden scrutiny feels almost too heavy to bear. “I did,” she responds, voice small. “I… I was so sad to see how ill you were, and I realized that humans are mostly water just how plants are as well, and since I could do things to plants- well, I figured I could maybe do something to humans, too. And I cured your fever, didn’t I? When you woke up from your nap, and you were suddenly feeling alright again, that was my magic.” 

“Wow,” Chanmi says, squeezing Junhee’s hand. “That’s so cool! You can heal people! That’s awesome, eonni, that’s like stuff you see in the movies.”

“Wow, indeed,” Kyungsoo murmurs, sitting up and leaning against the back of the couch with a heavy sigh. “I’m… I’m dating an actual witch. I don’t- I don’t know how I feel.” 

Their reactions are sort of what she expected them to be. Chanmi is more enthusiastic and eager to hear more, while Kyungsoo finds it a lot harder to wrap his head around all this. So, for the rest of the night, Junhee just answers Chanmi’s questions as best as she knows how, and demonstrates her powers for her, to satisfy her curiosity even just a little bit. Kyungsoo doesn’t really ask about anything, doesn’t request she do anything to showcase her magic, but he’s clearly listening to her carefully as she speaks. He’s absorbing the information, even if he’s not actively participating in the conversation, which has always been his style of doing most things. 

Junhee shares them with how she trained her magic, how it feels to have it and how it works. How she visited the shaman to gain more information and what the shaman told her. That perhaps magic is something she always had but it just never manifested in her, because of her eating disorder and how it drained her mentally and physically. She talks about the things she’s learned to do and the things she thinks she could do, if she keeps at it. How she wants to explore more, little by little, how she wishes to visit the ocean again sometime with better understanding of why the water calls out to her, makes her feel the way that it does. 

It’s a lot, all of this, but she’s eternally grateful to Chanmi whose eyes sparkle with every detail Junhee is able to share, with every demonstration of her skills. That she’s so, so excited about this, so fascinated by it, and wants to see more, hear more. Junhee has a feeling that she will keep requesting for her to show the things she can do, and that makes her kind of kiddy as well; she has wanted to share this with them for so long, and to get such a response is all she ever wanted. 

But she’s still concerned about Kyungsoo, and how he’s handling this. When she stops talking and Chanmi finally runs out of questions to ask, the silence that lingers feels loaded, meaningful. Junhee keeps looking at Kyungsoo, just waiting for him to say something, and Chanmi turns to stare at him as well. 

Kyungsoo sighs once more, and rubs at his temple. “I mean, it’s now a part of you,” he says quietly, carefully like he’s considering every word before saying it out loud, “it’s now something that can’t be erased or taken away. I’d rather you’re a witch than see you go back to your eating disorder, or even your medication. You’ve been so bright and bubbly, so happy and full of life… I don’t want to ever see that taken away from you. And while this is a lot to accept, I… I want to. I want to accept it. I just need, need some time. To fully believe that this is real, and not just a fever dream I’ve had.” 

“And that’s all I can ask for,” Junhee says, reaching over Chanmi to touch Kyungsoo’s shoulder. “I don’t need you to be alright with it this instant. It wasn’t that easy for me either, so I get it. For as long as you don’t hate me, for as long as you won’t break up with me for this… It’s alright.”

“Princess… I would never break up with you over something like this,” Kyungsoo finally gives into emotion, and reaches out to her to pull her into his lap, falling back against the couch to accommodate Junhee’s short frame on top of him. “I love you and this isn’t going to change that. It’s just, it’s just a lot. To process. You know I can be so slow on the uptake sometimes, so slow to adapt.” 

“And we love you for being our steady rock,” Junhee murmurs, kissing his cheek repeatedly before hiding her face against his neck to conceal how emotional his words have made her. Chanmi laughs and leans in as well, smooching Kyungsoo’s cheek all gross and loud on purpose before also collapsing onto him, curling up against Junhee’s side. 

“And I love you both, my witch eonni and my slow and steady boyfriend,” Chanmi sighs happily, squeezing them both tightly. “We maybe an odd trio, but we’re perfect, to us, in our own ways.” 

And this, this is what Junhee is grateful for every single day that she gets to have these brilliant people by her side. These two shining stars, these two angels on earth, both of them so wonderful in their own ways, in their talents and skills and personalities. She loves them so much, and feels so undeserving to have them yet too selfish and greedy to let go. 

She knows that full acceptance of everything will only come with time, but this is already more than she dared to hope for.

*****

Adjusting to life with magic, well- it’s a journey.

Chanmi is quite overly excited about it. Every opportunity she gets, she asks Junhee to do something for her, to show her a new trick or challenges her to try something new to see if she can pull it off. Her childlike joy never dulls down, and her amazement witnessing real magic never disappears, her eyes sparkling full of wonder as she watches Junhee bend water at her will- be it successful or not. 

“What if you could wash the dishes with magic?” she wonders one evening. “Like, you said you could levitate a glass full of water- so like, if you just sort of do that, with the sponge, and scrub the dishes? I think they did something like that in Harry Potter, anyway.” 

“My magic isn’t like in Harry Potter,” Junhee sighs, even as she’s tying her hair up and out of the way. Putting her hair up in a ponytail helps her focus, be it math or doing magic, but also trying to control water can get messy sometimes. 

“I have faith in you, eonni,” Chanmi says as they crowd around the sink together. “But how cool would it be, if we never had to do dishes ever again?”

Junhee elbows her gently. “I’m not a dishwasher,” she grumbles. “I still need to focus on it to make it happen, I can’t just walk away and expect it to happen.”

“Bummer.” Chanmi pushes out her lower lip, before clasping her hands together. “But I still want to see it!” 

Junhee has gotten much better with controlling objects through water, much thanks to the little tasks Chanmi wants her to do just for the fun of it, and moving the sponge around isn’t all that hard. But also holding up a plate, steady and half way out of the water, while still controlling the sponge- that takes some serious mental acrobatics. It’s like having two nondominant hands, and trying to write calligraphy with them at the same time. 

There’s a lot of splashing, the plate slipping back into the water and the sponge smashing against it unnecessarily hard but no scrubbing is happening. But Chanmi’s excited little shrieks and words of encouragement are rewarding enough, and Junhee keeps pushing for it until it does work, the sponge moving against the surface of the plate like it’s held by an invisible hand. Because the plate cannot hold any water, Junhee has to pick it out of the sink by hand, but after dipping it in the rinsing water she can tell that it’s sparkly clean. 

“I did it!” she exclaims, and high fives Chanmi victoriously. “It worked!”

“Of course it did,” Chanmi laughs, hugging her and jumping slightly, jostling her so much that Junhee has to set the plate back down in the fear that it might slip from her grip. “That was so cool!”

“Let’s not do that ever again,” Junhee giggles. “That was so hard. It’s easier to just do it by hand, trust me. Controlling just one object is fine, but two? That’s just too difficult.”

And it doesn’t stop there. Chanmi wants to see her bend the bathwater, wants to see her do tricks with the shower spray, wants to make her water resistant as well when it rains and they’re walking outside. Make the plants grow, make flowers bloom, or dry off clothes when they come out of the washing machine. She sees opportunities to utilize her magic in almost every turn, and sometimes it’s delightful, sometimes annoying, sometimes endearing. Junhee doesn’t have the heart to refuse her often, even if on her most irritable days she does feel a bit like a circus animal; she knows that’s not how Chanmi intends for her to feel, but Junhee can’t help but feel a bit miffed when Chanmi wants her to do something like clean up spilled liquid just because she’s too lazy to get tissues to do it. 

Kyungsoo, on the other hand, never asks her to show off her skills. He doesn’t even bring it up, although Junhee always finds him watching her keenly whenever she’s using magic, usually per Chanmi’s request. Kyungsoo seems enthralled by it but also scared of it, shying away even if at the same time, he can’t take his eyes away from it. 

Junhee doesn’t corner him about it. She doesn’t want to force him to face this head on. It’s something she’s forced onto him and into his life, and she doesn’t want to make it any more obvious and blatant than it has to be. And again, she’s reminded of the guilt she feels for her eating disorder- she forced that into their lives as well, and at first there wasn’t even a promise that it was ever going to get better. That it was ever going to go away. 

But this, this will never go away. 

Yet no matter how sorry she feels, no matter how much she fears and worries about his feelings, Kyungsoo never fails to show her how his heart hasn’t changed. He still holds her and touches her the same, still looks at her the same, and whenever Junhee wakes up at night, she always finds Kyungsoo either pressed up against her or reaching over Chanmi to touch her. 

No matter how he may feel about the magical aspect of her, he still loves her all the same. 

It’s strange how this becomes routine eventually, how they all get used to it. Junhee didn’t think that it would be possible, but with time, it just happens. Little by little. Their home becomes a place for her to use her magic without worries, to try and experiment and see what she can achieve. When the door closes and she’s away from the outside world, she can let her magic come out and play. Chanmi jokes that it’s like taking off her bra upon coming home- just another ritual of relaxing, letting walls come down in their little safe space. 

And to Junhee, it kind of feels like that. There’s something suffocating about having to hold back her magic, having to bottle it up even when it’s dancing right there in her fingertips, filling up the spaces between her ribs and itching to get out. At its worst, it’s almost like holding her breath; it makes her claustrophobic, it makes her restless, the urge to just let go building and building up. At work, she can at least hide in the bathroom to let it flow freely when the urge gets to be too much, but sometimes she has to wait so long that she fears she will break.

Coming home and being allowed to just be herself is an even bigger blessing than she thought it could be.

There comes a morning when Kyungsoo isn’t startled to walk into bathroom to find Junhee drying her hair by just running her fingers through the long locks of hair, no hairdryer needed, or to witness her making water boil for her tea in her mug with just the snap of her fingers. There comes a day when Chanmi runs out of things to ask from her, having exhausted her imagination and satisfied her curiosity. 

It becomes normal, and Junhee likes it that way. 

The monsoon season reaches it end as well, and they’re left with the humid heat of Korean summers. It’s late July, but August will bring only more heat until. But after the constant, heavy rains, venturing out is a joy and a luxury they all want to make the most out of.

“Let’s go out biking at the river,” Kyungsoo suggests one Tuesday evening. They’ve already had dinner and the sun is setting in a couple of hours, but despite having work the next day, they’re all eager to do something fun. “Let’s rent bikes and just go, enjoy the evening for a bit. It’s such a nice day out.” 

Chanmi and Junhee don’t need any more persuasion than that, and they all hurry to get changed into more comfortable, appropriate clothes for biking. They don’t live next to the river exactly, but they only need a short subway ride to get there, hopping out in Dangsan and descending down from the subway bridge to get to the riverside. 

It’s surprisingly quiet; there are a few people here and there, some bikers passing by, but compared to the weekends it’s almost empty. “Kind of surreal,” Chanmi chirps as she walks forward, eyes scanning to try and spot the city bike station. “I’m so used to this place always being so crowded. It’s almost like Chuseok or something.” 

Kyungsoo and Junhee both agree. Chuseok, one of the biggest family holidays in Korea, always leaves Seoul the emptiest it ever gets as people head back to their hometowns to greet relatives, or even travel abroad like they’re planning to do. It leaves Seoul almost harrowingly empty, compared to its usual hustle and bustle. And this balmy summer evening sort of feels reminiscent of that, even with the constant roar of traffic from the highway passing by less than two hundred meters away. 

They find the bikes, and rent them with their transit cards. Kyungsoo takes the lead and heads on the bike trail, cycling to the west, towards the center of the city. Junhee and Chanmi follow close behind in a neat line, not wanting to get in anyone’s way. They’re not headed anywhere particular, have no set destination, so they just bike forward, letting the scenery pass by; to their left, there’s the highway following the northern bank of the river and the high-rise buildings behind it, and to their right there’s the Han river and the parks and greenery that surround it from both sides. Yet even on that side, the bridges crossing the river and the buildings looming behind the trees on the opposite bank break the illusion of untouched nature. There are people in the park next to them, walking their dogs or just sitting on the grass to enjoy the evening, and all in all it’s so, so peaceful and beautiful. 

They carry on like that, just biking on and on. There’s no need to worry about heading back; they can just leave these bikes anywhere at the city bike spots, and take a bus or the subway back home. So they just keep on going, venturing beyond the curve in the road and then the next. The land next to the river is all even too, so there’s nothing but smooth road ahead of them for miles on end. 

“We could go all the way to Jamsil!” Chanmi exclaims, momentarily speeding up to ride next to Junhee, only a little bit behind Kyungsoo to make sure they can hear her. “How awesome would that be!” 

“Please no,” Junhee laughs, shaking her head. “It’s so far away, my legs are going to be dead long before we get there! And I have to get out of bed tomorrow, too! Spare your old eonni, please.” 

The grin Chanmi gives her speaks volumes for how much she really isn’t sorry, and Junhee can hear Kyungsoo laugh. “Jamsil is absolutely too far,” Kyungsoo shouts over his shoulder. “At least for tonight. Besides, I’m getting thirsty, so what do you say if we stop to grab a snack? We could sit by the river for a moment, then decide if we want to keep going forward or head back.”

They all agree, and so they only bike a little bit longer until they find another kiosk at the riverside so they can buy something to eat. Heading off the bike trail, they push their bikes to the park and towards the water until they find a good spot to sit down. They didn’t think to bring a blanket or anything to sit on, but the soil isn’t too wet, so they can enjoy their little impromptu picnic even without one. The sun is just dipping below the horizon and it’s growing dark quickly, most others packing away their belongings and heading out, most dogwalkers gone as well. If they felt alone before, it’s even emptier and quieter now, the sound of the running water blending together with the noise of the traffic into perfect white noise. 

“This feels like I’m a student again,” Junhee sighs as they dig into their snacks and crack open their beers. “Sitting on the grass late at night on a weeknight, just enjoying life. But I do think that tomorrow morning I’ll regret this more than I ever did when I was still in college. At that age, sleep deprivation was not a thing I knew existed.”

Chanmi and Kyungsoo both laugh heartily. It feels so nice, to just do something so simple but still have so much fun. Not to say that Junhee doesn’t enjoy formal dates, but there’s just something special about being able to be so happy and pleased with the most casual outing. That it only takes cheap snacks from the convenience store, a patch of green grass, and deepening twilight around them to make this memorable. 

The soft buzz from the alcohol mixes in with her tingly magic, this peaceful warmth running through her as she just sits there and jokes around with her two partners. It’s like the tide coming in, the magic growing inside her, demanding for an outlet, pushing and poking to find its way out. She can subdue it for a moment, but the longer they sit there and the more she drinks, even though she isn’t even drunk yet, the harder it gets. And perhaps it’s the alcohol that makes her brave, too, because after taking a quick glance around the park, she knows she has to do something. Anything. 

“I have an idea,” she whispers to Chanmi and Kyungsoo before getting up on her feet and running towards the river. It flows a few feet below them, a rail separating the pathway from the steep cliff leading into the water. The banks are not natural any longer, having been shaped by man a long time ago, but the water still runs untamed, free, determined in its journey towards the ocean.

Chanmi and Kyungsoo catch up with her only seconds later, standing on her sides as they all gaze at the water, dark but reflecting lights like dancing fairies on its surface. “What’s your idea?” Chanmi asks, bouncing on the balls of her feet. She already knows that Junhee is thinking about magic- why else would she be so drawn to the water?

Junhee can feel the river call to her. It’s not as strong as the pull of the ocean, and she briefly wonders why that is; is it because it’s a smaller body of water, or is it because it’s not salt water? She should test that theory sometime, see if salt water really obeys her differently. But now… now, she wants to get closer, wants to feel the water with her body. 

She looks around again. There’s really no one here; the park is empty, and while there are people passing by, they’re further away and probably not paying attention to them one bit. No one would notice if she just… if she just goes for it…

“Watch.” And this is definitely alcohol, this is more reckless than she’d ever, ever do, but perhaps also how the water calls to her, whispers her name and sings to her in a language she wants to understand. She toes off her shoes and then in one fluid motion climbs over the fence.

The bank of the river is too steep and she falls into the water, hearing Kyungsoo and Chanmi yell behind her, but she’s not afraid. Her focus is laser sharp and the magic obedient to her tonight, flowing out of her, surrounding her, filling her up now that she lets it run loose. And so, instead of crashing into the water and sinking down, she lands on the subtle waves like stepping on a mattress, finding foothold and gaining her balance even if a bit shakily as she stands up straight again.

Junhee can’t hold back her loud laugh as it bursts out of her, and she runs forward, overjoyed. The water barely bends down beneath her feet before bouncing back up again, the feeling something like running on a trampoline or a bed. It’s so effortless, to just run and run and feel the water flow beneath her, dancing with her like it’s overjoyed to have her join its play.

She turns around, arms spread as she spins to face the bank of the river again. Kyungsoo and Chanmi stand there stunned, staring at her with their mouths open, and their comical expressions only make her giggle even louder. “Look what I can do!” she yells and sprints back towards them. As much as she wants to just keep running, she doesn’t want to worry them. “Isn’t this amazing?”

“Wow,” Chanmi says before clapping her hands together excitedly, only to be hushed by Kyungsoo who takes a quick look around just to make sure they’re still alone. “Wow, eonni! I didn’t know you could do that!”

“Me neither,” Junhee laughs, and jumps around a little just to see what would happen. The water bends below her like it did when she landed, but it doesn’t give in. She doesn’t get wet, doesn’t feel the moisture at all. It’s hard to believe even for her, even though she’s living it true. But maybe after discovering her ability to breathe underwater, she shouldn’t be so flustered by this. 

“Come back up now, someone could see,” Kyungsoo acts as the voice of reason and gestures for Junhee to return to them. “How are you even going to come up? It’s so steep.”  
Junhee can hear his sincere worry in his voice, and she knows that her magic is bound to run out eventually if she keeps using it like this. She can already feel it depleting, slow but steady, and Kyungsoo does make a good point- how is she going to get back up?

She walks over to the bank of the river and tilts her head up to look at her partners. It’s too steep for her to just run up, she’s not in that kind of shape. But the tipsy brain that came up with the idea to do this in the first place is resourceful, and she knows that magic will be the answer. 

“Up,” she commands, and she almost loses her balance as a pillar of water lifts her up and out of the river. She flails wildly to grasp the fence as she shoots upwards, and leaps forward, Kyungsoo and Chanmi both scampering to get away from the sudden force and the wall of water coming up. She lets go of the magic and it falls back down with a massive splash, leaving her clinging onto the fence for dear life, now soaking wet and dripping, out of breath and exhilarated.

“Well, I guess that’s one way of doing it,” Kyungsoo says dryly as they all recover a little. He steps forward to help Junhee climb over the fence to get on the safe side, back on even ground. “I hope this is enough adventure for you for tonight.” But his eyes are bright, just like Chanmi’s, and Junhee is so glad. To have at least amused him. To not be scolded more than this.

“I just had to vent some of it out,” she shrugs, laughing as she uses the rest of her magic to dry them all off. “I felt like I was going to burst, so I just wanted to do something with it. Just to relieve some of the pressure.”

“It was super dope,” Chanmi pipes up, coming in to hug them both. “But Kyungsoo is right. Enough adventure, let’s head back home.”

“Yeah, let’s.” After all, their home is the one place on earth Junhee knows she belongs. With Chanmi, and with Kyungsoo. 

But little does she know that the next storm is already in the horizon.

*****

Chanmi starts to itch for another trip soon enough.

“Chuseok is still so far away,” she whines as they’re cooking in the kitchen. Kyungsoo declared this a side dish preparation day; they’re low on everything, and he insists that they shouldn’t just rely on their mothers to supply everything. They ought to pull their weight, and make some of the pickled and fermented food items on their own. It’s not kimchi making season yet, but at least there are other side dishes that they can make to be eaten in the weeks to come. But it takes a lot of chopping, a lot of time consuming tasks, and this is now what they’re all using their weekend for. 

“But we were in Jeju like, last month,” Kyungsoo sighs. “Chuseok is in September and it’s almost August.”

“Yeah, that’s like six weeks away!” Chanmi isn’t so easily placated, once again. She purses her lips as she stares at her chopping board and the radish she’s chopping into thin slices. “We could just, do another weekend trip. It wouldn’t even be expensive, if we take the bus and stay in a hostel.”

“Where would you like to go?” Junhee asks, earning herself a sharp glare from Kyungsoo. She knows she’s only adding fuel to the fire, but it’s hard not to indulge. Ever since she got better, she upped her hours at work, and she can’t say that she’s too happy about it. A short getaway sounds nice.

Chanmi flashes her pearly white teeth at her in a grateful smile, glad that she’s found an ally. “I don’t know, Gyeongju or something?” she says with a shrug of her shoulders, her top sliding off one shoulder with the motion. “I’ve never been, and I know that’s like super embarrassing! Everyone visits there on a school trip but I never got to go, and I know I’m missing out.” 

“That’s not too far.” Junhee purses her lips as she thinks. “Like, three hours by bus or something? We wouldn’t even have to take days off or anything, there’s not that much to see there. We could go there after work on Friday and come back on Sunday.”

Kyungsoo rolls his eyes as he picks up another pear to peel. “You guys are ridiculous,” he huffs. “Why do you do this to me? Is it fun to gang up on me and make me agree to all these things?” 

“Yes,” the girls say in unison, giggling so hard that Chanmi has to set her knife down so she wouldn’t injure herself. 

“I see how it is.” Kyungsoo shakes his head. “Well, we can think about it. But that’s not a promise that we’ll go! Just a promise that I’ll think about it.” 

Chanmi and Junhee already know that it’s a yes. 

And so, Junhee goes to buy them the bus tickets not even a week later. 

It’s a lot of fun, too. She hasn’t done trips like this in forever, usually opting to fly out of the country if she’s ever taken vacations, and so there’s certain excitement to going to the long-distance bus terminal near Gangnam. It’s late Friday afternoon and the place is really busy, people going about and running to catch their buses. Junhee clings onto Kyungsoo as not to get lost, Chanmi using her height in front of them to make way as they get to their platform. 

The bus ride lulls Junhee to sleep for the entire duration of it. She wakes up once in the middle of it as they stop at a rest stop and Kyungsoo goes to get them something to snack on from the little stores, but once they start driving again she knocks out cold once more. She doesn’t usually nap during the day, not anymore, now that her body is nourished and she’s not always exhausted from the severe calorie deficit she was under, but the moving car and the steady hum of the engine just puts her right to sleep.

When they arrive in Gyeongju, she’s a bit drowsy after her long nap, stumbling out of the bus and into the small bus station. Kyungsoo leads them out and onto the right local bus so they can head to their little hostel more towards the heart of the city. Seeing the massive grave mounds that the city is famous for as they drive by them is exciting though, and Junhee is already itching for their adventures tomorrow, just to go and explore everything. 

They check in at their hostel. Sadly, they have to be separated, Kyungsoo into the room with guys and Chanmi and Junhee into a room with the girls; they could have gotten into a unisex room, but Chanmi didn’t feel comfortable with the idea of possibly being around other guys in such close proximity. Kyungsoo insists that he doesn’t mind and just tells them to meet him at the living room once they’re done settling in.

The girls’ room is mostly empty save for one bed that seems to be taken, and Junhee and Chanmi take one of the bunkbeds to themselves. “Top or bottom,” Chanmi asks as she pokes around to see where the outlets are hidden, although she can’t resist grinning at Junhee meaningfully. 

“Stop it,” Junhee scolds her and smacks her lightly on the arm, before throwing her bag on the top bed. “I’ll sleep here, I want to experience how it feels like to be higher than you.” 

Chanmi laughs at her fondly, before ushering her to get changed if she’s planning on it so they can head out. 

There’s not much to be done in the small town this late into the evening. The city is tiny in comparison to Seoul with its 260,000 residents, and it shows. The streets are almost empty, no tall buildings in sight, and many places seem to close up shop earlier than what they’re used to in Seoul. But it’s refreshing; the silence, the peace and quiet. Granted, the tourist season is peaking around this time, but you couldn’t really tell. They spot no foreigners around, and most people seem to know where they’re going. It feels odd, but it’s also really nice. 

They enjoy a quiet dinner at a local restaurant, amusing the old ladies working there endlessly with their Seoul accents. Chanmi is absolutely overjoyed and asks them to teach their dialect to her, happily mimicking them as best as she can, much to the amusement of the ladies and Kyungsoo and Junhee alike. It’s fun, and they stop by at a bar for a couple of drinks before heading to their hostel; they want to get up early, to make the most out of their day tomorrow. 

Waking up early is still not Junhee’s forte; it takes several attempts and gentle nudges from Chanmi to rouse her. Kyungsoo would get it done much faster, but Chanmi is still weak to Junhee’s often unintentional cuteness, and isn’t as firm with her as she ought to be. 

“C’mon, Kyungsoo is already waiting for us,” she whispers as she strokes Junhee’s hair gently. She’s tall enough to reach into the top bunk effortlessly. “If you’re going to shower, you need to get up now. There’s breakfast, too.” 

Junhee whines about it, but eventually rolls out of bed to get ready for the day. 

Since the Buddhist temple is a little bit out of the city itself, they have to take a bus to get there. It’s a little over half an hour, the road winding out of the city and then into the surrounding countryside. Chanmi is so enthralled by it, since she’s travelled outside of Seoul the least out of all of them, staring out of the window in amazement at the scenery passing by; rice paddies, farm houses, green houses, dirt roads, old cars. They’re in a valley surrounded by mountains, like the mountains are rising from the earth to protect the people in their arms, and Junhee wonders if that was the reason why these people settled here all those years ago. 

The Bulguksa temple is a wonderful experience. They got there at the right time, before all the other tourists made it there, the morning still new and beautiful all around them, and the historical buildings and the vast temple complex stretching on and on just offers so much to see. The history of the place is so concrete, in the wooden buildings and the stone pagodas, the paintings and the statues, and watching Chanmi take it all in so eagerly makes it even more precious to Junhee and Kyungsoo as well, despite having visited the temple before. 

From the temple, they have to take another bus to head up the mountain where the stone grotto is. The road is so narrow and winds up the side of the mountain so steeply that Junhee is actually scared for her life, holding onto Kyungsoo’s hand as tightly as she can and keeping her eyes closed the entire time, frightened that they’re going to either fall off or crash into an oncoming car. But they make it to the mountain top in one piece, although her legs feel a little bit like jelly when she jumps out of the bus back onto steady ground.

The mountain top offers a beautiful view, however. On one side, they can see into the valley that they just travelled through, the tiny houses and the green fields, and on the other side the view opens into the national park that surrounds the location and if they squint their eyes, they can even see the ocean in the horizon, massive ships sailing across. Or maybe it’s just Junhee’s imagination- but she likes the feeling of standing on top of the world, just watching the world silently carry on in its ways, somewhere far away. She can understand now why the ancient monks would have wanted to build something so precious this far up, this far removed from the capital of the old kingdom of Silla that flourished here back then. 

To get to the stone grotto, they have to hike further into the forest, but it’s not a long walk. The grotto itself though, there’s just something about it- it seems a lot smaller, yet more impressive than it does in text book pictures, with the massive Buddha statue and the carefully cut stone surrounding it. It’s breathtaking, yet somehow understated, and Junhee can’t quite put her finger on how she really feels about it. 

“I think it’s time for lunch,” Kyungsoo says as they walk back, although they have to stop every few feet so that Chanmi can take pictures of the squirrels that come to greet them, properly hoping to get treats. “Do you guys want to go all the way back to Gyeongju to eat, or should we grab something back at the temple? I think there were some restaurants next to the bus stop there.”

“Probably really expensive, since it’s a tourist attraction,” Junhee points out, taking Kyungsoo’s hand into hers since Chanmi is too preoccupied with the cute animals. “I don’t want to get completely scammed, you know. Let’s head back to the city. Unless you guys are starving.” 

She sometimes forgets how often regular people eat- it’s something she’s gotten better at, but sometimes she doesn’t realize how much time has passed since the last time she ate anything. She shouldn’t be the one to make this call, because she’s the least affected by hunger.

“You’re right, the city isn’t too far away anyway. I’m not famished yet.” Kyungsoo laughs, squeezing her hand in his. “Let’s go, we don’t want to miss our bus, or we’re going to have to wait 30 minutes for the next one.” 

After lunch, they spend the day touring the tombs and the museums attached to them. The grass covered mounds are absolutely huge, and they’re everywhere in the city; Gyeongju is an ancient capital of Silla, the kingdom that would later unite the entire peninsula under one ruler, and all of its rulers were buried here, in massive graves. The eerie silence contrasted with the tourist groups walking around, it’s an odd mixture, and makes Junhee thoughtful, especially when they get to the grave of the shaman king. Did he hold powers similar to hers, perhaps? Did they use magic too? The mounds were man-built with bricks and stones, but something about their perfect roundedness feels too perfect to have been crafted like so. Looking at the decorative crowns, Junhee wonders if she, too, could have worn one had she been born at the right time. Or would she have been punished for her sorcery? Would she have been killed, or banished from the community? 

And for the first time, she feels lonely. Lonely that she doesn’t know the history that she possibly comes from, doesn’t know anyone like her. Doesn’t know anything but what she’s experimented on herself, by herself. 

It’s lonesome. 

They’re exhausted after their long day, and head back to the hostel quite early. They still have things to do for Sunday before heading back to Seoul. They saved the palace for last, not wanting to rush through everything in one day, and Junhee is grateful to get off her feet after everything they’ve done. 

She can feel her magic sparking through her, but she presses it down. She’s too tired, and there are people around; the hostel has gotten busier, new people have come in, and finding a time and place to use her magic seems too difficult. Too risky. What if someone saw? She can’t take that chance. Junhee didn’t get to use her magic the day before either, but it’s fine. It’ll be just fine. 

It feels slightly uncomfortable, this constant pressure inside of her, but she’s stubborn in ignoring it. She’s always been good at suppressing things- and this is no different. They’ll be home tomorrow, she tells herself as she tries not to toss and turn in bed too much in fear that it would jostle the whole bed and keep Chanmi awake. She’ll let her magic loose then. 

On Sunday morning, they head to the ancient palace. They buy their tickets and wander inside the vast palace grounds. It’s mostly just open space with nothing but the old foundations left of the grand buildings that stood there. Only a couple buildings have been rebuilt, based on what they think that the buildings must have looked like; they’re painted the same shade of burnt red as the palaces in Seoul, and equally as decorative in style, but also decidedly very different from Seoul palaces. 

“They’re somehow like… unearthly,” Kyungsoo muses as they admire one of the pavilions. “Like, it’s only held up by those pillars, yet the roof seems so heavy. It’s huge, considering it’s just a roof with no other purpose. Massive. It looks like it shouldn’t stay up, but it does.” 

“It does feel kind of unreal,” Junhee agrees. She totally gets what Kyungsoo is saying. The pillars are thick, but the whole roof is so big in size that it looks disproportioned to what is holding it up. “Let’s go look at the pond next.” 

There’s a massive pond right next to the pavilions, one that was artificially built back in the glory of Silla. It’s surprisingly big and it looks deep, yet in the daylight the Wonji bond can’t show its full potential. 

“It’d be so cool if we could see it at night, with all the lights reflecting,” Chanmi says with a sigh, although she does keep taking pictures anyway. “But we have to head back.”

“Yeah, in just a bit.” Kyungsoo glances at his watch quickly. “But we can come again, sometime. Maybe do a whole tour. Visit here, visit Daegu, visit Busan… You girls have got me hooked on travelling in Korea.” 

The water calls to Junhee, especially with all of the magic bottled up inside her, but the place is all too crowded for her to allow her magic to run loose. It’s harder to hold back now with the medium of her magic right there, whispering her name, but she doesn’t even want to think about the trouble she’d get in if she let anything happen. She’s getting antsy though, tempted by the water and anxious to get away from it to stay safe. 

“Yeah, we could come again in the winter. I heard that it looks super nice then, with the ice and everything.” She takes a few steps back, fighting to regulate her breathing. She doesn’t want to alarm either of her partners, although the pull of her magic is getting stronger. “But then the beaches in Busan wouldn’t be much fun… Well, this place is close enough that even a day trip could do. But that’s something to think about later. Let’s go before we miss our bus back home.” 

“There’s no rush yet,” Chanmi says, her eyebrows furrowed and her tone of voice turning whiney. “I want to walk around the pond, take more pictures of it.” 

At any other time, Junhee wouldn’t be upset. She knows Chanmi isn’t doing this to be petulant, or to make her feel bad; she’s just so animated, even the slightest change in mood clear as day on her face. This is a special trip to Chanmi who’s never been here before, and she doesn’t know how much Junhee is struggling right now. 

But something inside her is just pulled too tight, like a bow ready to fire. She just doesn’t know if she’ll be able to shoot the arrow, before the bow snaps into pieces under the pressure. 

“Fine, go and take your pictures then, but if you miss the bus then you know it’s your own fault. I’m going now.” The words come out sharper than she meant them to. She almost winces herself at how harsh that sounded, but she’s now in a hurry to get away. As the anger has taken over, it’s gotten even harder to restrain the force of the magic. Her magic is so tied to her emotions, and the sudden flash of anger did her no favors. Destroy, wipe everything away, the water screams to her, and she doesn’t know how long she can resist it. 

She turns around on her heels and marches away, hands shaking where she’s balled them up into fists by her sides. The pull of the water gets weaker with each step she takes yet she doesn’t dare look back, doesn’t dare slow down, and hurries out of the palace and through the gates like someone is chasing her. The magic is sparking at her fingertips but she keeps shoving it back down, violently and vigorously, although the upset she feels only makes it more difficult. Not only is she now mad at Chanmi, but at herself- for behaving in such a way, for knowingly upsetting her girlfriend like this. 

Junhee doesn’t stop walking until she gets to the bus station. It’s maybe a-mile-long walk, but she doesn’t stop, doesn’t hesitate, just keeps walking, almost blind to her surroundings and the traffic going by. It’s only at the bus station that she finally stops, finally takes in a deep breath, and allows herself to slump down at the benches there. She’s shaking, and she hasn’t felt this broken in so long. 

How did she let this happen? How could she hurt Chanmi like that? And she just knows that even if Kyungsoo will try not to pick sides, he would be right and fair in siding with Chanmi. The girl never did anything- it was Junhee, who threw a temper tantrum for no apparent reason.

Kyungsoo and Chanmi only make it to the bus station good ten minutes after her. They look winded, like they made haste the entire way there, although their bus is still not leaving yet. Kyungsoo has his mouth pressed into a thin line, hand in Chanmi’s and squeezing possessively, while Chanmi looks like she has cried. Yet the proud, hurt look in her eyes says that she isn’t ready to make up yet- she doesn’t have many flaws, but perhaps her affinity for holding grudges when she’s been wronged is one. But Junhee knows she’s exactly the same- she can be so prideful when she’s angry, even when she’s in the wrong. She has no room to judge Chanmi, especially when it so blatantly was all her fault anyway.

“There’s your ticket,” Kyungsoo murmurs as he shoves the piece of paper in Junhee’s hand. “You sit alone this time, and me and Chanmi will sit together. I think it’s for the best. Let’s talk at home, it’s better if we don’t try to do this here in public.”

Junhee is miserable, but she doesn’t argue against it, and just gets on the bus without saying a word to her partners. There are so many emotions swirling through her, pain and hurt and anger, and it’s all bleeding into her magic, tugging and poking at it, aggravating it, provoking it. She feels ready to explode, yet she can do nothing else but curl up small in her seat and try to fall asleep for the drive, just so she could escape the misery. 

The drive feels hours, if not days longer than it did previously. Every bump of the road, every sudden stop, every tunnel- the outside stimuli are too much, too strong, and all she can do is keep swallowing back the magic threatening to bubble out of her. She curls up smaller and smaller yet nothing can confine it, she knows, yet she has to try. If she sleeps, it’s just a haze that provides no relief- she thinks she falls asleep for what again feels like hours, yet when she blinks her eyes open, merely minutes have passed. She should have let her magic flow free, she should have found the time- and she shouldn’t have gotten this emotional, shouldn’t have given into her emotions. How foolish she was.

Once they arrive in Seoul, she lets Kyungsoo and Chanmi walk together and hangs back willingly. Kyungsoo keeps glancing back at her over his shoulder, but each time Junhee just shakes her head at him, gestures for him to keep going. Chanmi needs him more than she does- yet she can’t stop shaking, can’t stop stumbling on her own feet, blinded by how intensely the magic is now rushing through her. She’s never felt so much of it, has always let it out much sooner before reaching this point, and she’s so, so scared of what is going to happen. If she can even make it home. The crowded subway makes her want to vomit, her panic settling in deeper, thickening up, making the magic sticky and slow like molasses but hot, burning, insistent. The pressure is building, and she’s growing weaker. 

It’s like a migraine where every movement hurts, makes pain explode all over, but somehow worse. It doesn’t hurt yet it does- all her muscles are tight, her breathing shallow, and along with her heartbeat she can hear the pulse of the magic, rapid and heavy. Getting bumped into by people, being pushed around, trying to make her way through the subway station and towards the right exit, she doesn’t know how she holds on and just doesn’t succumb to it. 

Junhee follows Kyungsoo and Chanmi home based on familiarity alone, trailing along the route she’s walked hundreds of times in the time that they’ve lived in this apartment. It’s easier to breathe now, away from the crowd, yet the pressure is still just as urgent, uncomfortable, horrifying. 

Kyungsoo and Chanmi make it to the door before her, but Kyungsoo hangs back to keep the door open for her. “Are you alright?” he asks, but Junhee almost doesn’t hear him, and just stumbles past him and into the staircase. All she knows is that she needs to get back to the apartment, now, before it’s too late. The storm is coming, it’s brewing inside her, and she can’t hold it back. Her bones are already breaking, her chest too tight, her heart too weak. 

She storms right past Chanmi and hurries into the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind her before she crumbles down on the floor, gasping for air. She’s shaking so badly, she can’t think- what does she do now, how does she let this all out? And she’s afraid, she’s so afraid.

The image of the shaman in training flashes through her mind, rising from somewhere deep in her memory. The scar on her neck, the shaman’s words; how she tried to suppress the spirits and ended up injuring herself, how the spirits made her do it. Now what is going to happen to her, her and her magic? She doesn’t know, yet she knows she cannot run away. Not anymore.

It’s at the same moment as Kyungsoo opens the door behind her that the magic bursts forward. Junhee can hear nothing, can do nothing- the tug of magic inside her is too strong, like a vortex, all of it just exploding out of her, the bow finally breaking under the tension. And water explodes everywhere around her as well, the taps turning on and water materializing out of thin air, flowing around her in a massive ball, building and building up, swirling quicker and quicker, enveloping her but not touching her, surrounding her as the magic just spins it around aimlessly, just wildly moving like the wind in a tornado. 

When Kyungsoo calls her name, Junhee doesn’t hear. When Kyungsoo tries to reach for her, she doesn’t realize it. But her magic, now more violent than ever before, makes the water around her heat up, makes it boil and then explode in a burst of hot steam while more water still keeps rushing out of the taps, swirling around her only to do the same.  
When Kyungsoo screams in pain, Junhee doesn’t her him. When Kyungsoo still tries to reach for her, despite his burns, she doesn’t realize it. She can do nothing but curl up on the floor, the water surrounding her, and let her magic just do what it must. Rage, rage and take revenge for being held back for so long, punish her for what she did to it. How she neglected it. 

Punish her partner, who is only trying to save her from it. 

When Chanmi forcefully pulls Kyungsoo away, screaming at him that it’s useless, that he’s only going to hurt himself more, Junhee still doesn’t hear it. When Kyungsoo fights back and charges forward once more to grab her, Junhee doesn’t realize it. Doesn’t hear how Kyungsoo screams in pain again, as the hot water explodes once more, scalding his bare skin, scalding Chanmi as well.

She just lays still, in the eye of the storm. The eye of the tornado, surrounding her, all over her- until it just stops.

Her magic runs out, and it all just comes to a stop. The peace after the storm, Junhee in the middle of the rubble of it. The bathroom flooded with water, the taps broken from the force that which the water rushed out of them, every single item in the bathroom knocked over and littered around. Kyungsoo and Chanmi both standing there, in pain, the hot water at their feet still burning them- and Junhee, laying on the ground, unconscious.

The storm is over- but with what price?


	5. Chapter 5

Junhee comes to on the couch, groggy and aching like she got hit by a truck. Her limbs feel heavy and they don’t obey her like she wants them to, and her head is foggy, disoriented. Blinking her eyes open, she’s confused as to where she is, what happened- until it all comes back in one massive wave of guilt, fear, and alarm. 

Throwing the blanket off her body is like fighting a snake trying to choke her to death, and she falls down on the floor with a thud when she’s finally free from it. Her body is out of balance, weak and unsteady in ways she’s never experienced before. Even when she was at her weakest, when she was starving herself the most, she never felt something like this. The magic is there, weak and deep down, but the way she used all of it has left her empty, and it’s affecting every part of her. It’s a part of her very being, and what happens to it also affects the rest of her. 

She tries to call for her partners but her voice gets stuck in her throat, and she wobbles forward towards the kitchen. She realizes she’s not wearing what she was wearing earlier, when they arrived in the apartment- someone must have changed her out and into this oversized sweater and pants. But the flash of gratitude doesn’t last long, before it’s replaced by terror and guilt when she witnesses the sight of her partners in the kitchen. 

Chanmi is hovering over Kyungsoo, dabbing at his face with a white, thick cream even as Kyungsoo keeps wincing and trying to pull away. His torso is bare and allows Junhee to see all the burns and redness covering him, especially his chest and his arms; they look painful, some of them even bleeding and blistering, the damaged skin especially bad on his hands and forearms. There’s a bucket of water on the floor with ice cubes and towels in it, some towels covering his skin even now, an attempt to help with the burns. But Chanmi doesn’t seem any better, her face and arms almost just as badly injured although she still has her shirt on, so Junhee can’t see if the burns cover her body as well. There are some on her legs, too, her bare feet also red even if not blistering like the worst of the burns. 

Her breath gets caught in her lungs as she just stares, unable to comprehend it. “What… what happened?” she whispers, although as she speaks those words, she can feel the cold sense of dread built up in the pit of her stomach. Even before hearing the answer, deep down she already knows. She can already guess what happened, what caused this. Who hurt her lovers like this.

Chanmi visibly startles upon hearing her voice, jumping a little and her shoulders tensing up. Kyungsoo looks up with unreadable eyes, lips pursed. “You’re awake,” he says, licks his lips, winces when it hurts. “You were unconscious for a while, we didn’t quite know what to do. I was worried.” 

Chanmi refuses to make eye contact with her. Junhee feels short of breath, her heart hammering loudly in his chest. “What happened?” she demands again, her voice louder this time, and it makes Chanmi jump again. 

She’s afraid of her. 

Kyungsoo looks like he doesn’t know what to say. “Your… your magic. It got out of hand, I think? I don’t know why. And… and the water got really hot. It started boiling, it was swirling around you, and I tried to pull you away but it burned me. Chanmi came in too and… it was really chaotic. Everything stopped once you lost consciousness.”

“I didn’t… I didn’t realize you were there with me.” She doesn’t remember hearing them come in, doesn’t remember anything of the sort- she only knows that the magic took over, that the water surrounded her, until darkness came and claimed her. Anything else, she has no idea of. But she can see the evidence for her uncontrolled, untamed magic right before her eyes, as burns on her lovers’ bodies. 

It hurts. 

“I know. You didn’t seem aware of the world around you in that moment.” Kyungsoo doesn’t sound accusing, just tired and upset, but he doesn’t have to yell at Junhee to make her feel like dirt. They wouldn’t have to say anything, and she’d still grumble under the weight of her guilt.

She did this. She hurt them. She allowed this to happen, through her own foolishness, through her magic. She always thought that she couldn’t possibly hurt them more than she did with her eating disorder and its daily struggles, but this is something else. This is real, physical injuries, inflicted upon them, when they were trying to help her, probably worried for her. 

Her sweet, sweet Chanmi. Her precious Chanmi who deserves nothing but happiness, tenderness, and love. And her loyal Kyungsoo, who’s taken care of her all this time, given his all to help her recover- and this is how she repays him, by betraying him, turning against him. 

Her emotions manifest as a physical ache, spreading from her chest and taking over her entire body. But the tears don’t come, the grief and guilt too immense for them, for an outlet such as that. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, even though she knows it fixes nothing. It helps nothing. “I’m so sorry… It wasn’t supposed to happen, I didn’t know…” 

“But it happened.” Chanmi’s voice is terse, clipped, although her expression is more scared than angry. “It did happen. You did this. Your magic did this.” 

Junhee lowers her gaze down to the floor, hunches down, the weight of her guilt heavy on her shoulders. “I’m sorry,” she repeats again, and again, although she doesn’t blame them for not being able to forgive this. “I… I’m sorry. Please… please let me heal you. Take away your pain. Please.” 

But as soon as she says it, she knows how that must have sounded like. “I’ll be careful,” she whispers, wiping at her eyes. “Nothing bad will happen, I promise- please, just let me heal you. Burns are so painful, and you got so many, and I don’t want… I don’t want you to hurt any more than this.” 

She doesn’t have a lot of magic left, her powers still not replenished, but she hopes that she could at least alleviate the worst of it. If only they’ll let her.

The silence lingers, as her partners don’t know what to say. “Well… you healed me once before, and no harm was done,” Kyungsoo says eventually, although when Junhee lifts up her heard to look at him, she can tell he feels uneasy about it. “And I really don’t want to go to the doctor’s to try and explain how all this happened. So if you could…”

“I’ll be so, so careful. I won’t let anything happen to you, not ever again…” She will protect them from her magic at all costs. She will do anything to keep them safe, no matter what it takes. But first, she must take care of them. 

She steps forward, careful measured movements, approaches Kyungsoo more cautiously than she ever has in her life. It hurts, it hurts so much, the sudden barrier that has formed between them, yet she knows it’s all her fault. All of it, her own fault. Finally, she lays her hand on top of his shoulder where there’s a patch of healthy skin.

“Just tell me… if it feels wrong, and I’ll stop. I don’t want you to hurt…”

Finding the will to focus on her magic is so hard, her emotions threatening to take over constantly, but she’s adamant to do this. Do this right. Her magic is weak as well, barely there, trickling through her like a stream drying out in drought, but it’s there- it’s still there, like a curse. And slowly, she pushes it out and into Kyungsoo, directs it whispered words, pleas of taking away Kyungsoo’s pain, healing his skin, an endless mantra of requests and prayers. Her partners have never seen her use her magic like this, have never seen her heal or how difficult it is, but now, there are no praises from Chanmi, no curious looks from Kyungsoo. 

They’ve all come to fear her magic now, and there’s no awe left. 

Junhee is breathing heavily by the time all of Kyungsoo’s skin has been healed. Some marks remain where the blistering was the most severe and it all looks a little red and sore to the touch, but at least for the most part, it’s all gone. Junhee falls backwards as she lets go of her magic, tremendously weakened by how much she’s used it, but pulls her arm back when Kyungsoo tries to grab her. 

She doesn’t want to be touched. She’s a monster who hurt even her lovers like this. She doesn’t deserve them near. 

“Chanmi, I’ll heal you too… if you’ll let me. Please. I don’t want you to suffer because of me, not more than you already have. Please… I won’t let it hurt you, not again.” 

“Maybe you shouldn’t-” Kyungsoo stands up, and Junhee sidesteps him again, shakes her head. “No, I have to. I want to. Please, Chanmi, please let eonni do this… You’ll be safe. I promise.”

Chanmi’s hands are shaking at her sides and she looks absolutely torn, but nods tersely anyway, her short hair bobbing with her head movement. Yet she refuses to look at Junhee as she does it, again whispering under her breath, asking for the magic to heal her girlfriend, to take away the pain and to smooth her skin once more. 

It’s much more taxing now, her magic really running low, the energy for it coming from her body now instead of the magic reserves themselves, but she keeps pushing and pushing. She can’t let her partner suffer, and it matters little how much it takes out of her to fix what she has done. She can never repay it in full- but this is the bare minimum, at least. 

She almost passes out once every single patch of Chanmi’s skin has been made anew, her legs nearly giving out under her yet she still swats away Kyungsoo’s hands trying to touch her, reach for her. Her head is spinning, her breaths coming in short puffs like she’s ran several miles, all of her muscles quivering. She has never been this exhausted, never spent her magic to this extent, and it leaves her feeling sick and nauseous. Everything in her is screaming against this, telling her this was a bad idea, and it’s such a stark contrast- to go from bursting with magic to almost complete absence of it. She already felt horrible when she woke up from the couch, and pushing herself this far almost broke her completely.

The silence is loaded, all of them just standing there, in their kitchen. There has never been this kind of tension between them, not even when things were at their worst with Junhee’s eating disorder. Not even their worst fights compare to this, and Junhee doesn’t see a way forward. Doesn’t see how to make this better. her apologies sound empty even in her own ears- they fix nothing, they change nothing. 

How does she ever come back from hurting her partners like so? 

“I… I’m sorry.” Yet she apologies anyway, taking steps back. Something in her is telling her to leave. That she needs to be gone. Get away from Kyungsoo, get away from Chanmi, to make sure they remain safe. “I’m… I know I’ve done a terrible thing. It’s alright… if you can’t forgive me.”

“Junhee…” Kyungsoo’s voice has never sounded like this either. So lost, so unsure. Her strong Kyungsoo, who always has the answers, who always rolls up his sleeves to get to work, to make things better. Even he doesn’t know a way out of this.

“I think… I think we need time, to think,” Junhee says, her thoughts a jumbled mess. She doesn’t know what she wants, what she needs to do, but seeing them like this, afraid of her, unwilling to face her- it’s too painful. She can’t stay, not like this. Not when they’re afraid, not when she’s afraid. 

“I’ll… I’ll let you guys have your space. Just… time to think about this.” Time to think about breaking up- but she can’t bring herself to say it. She takes another step away, and another, even if her body is screaming at her to stop moving, to rest. “I think it’ll be for the best. I’m sorry.” 

She turns around and heads to the front door, to pull on shoes. She doesn’t know where she could go, but she needs to get away. She can’t just sit in the living room while Kyungsoo and Chanmi are in the next room over- there needs to be more physical distance, so she can breathe.

“Junhee, maybe you shouldn’t-” “Let her go.” Chanmi’s words bring tears into Junhee’s eyes, at last, but she wipes them away angrily with the sleeve of her sweater. She forcefully jams her feet into her sneakers and then walks out the door, not bothering with anything- no phone, no wallet, no nothing. None of it seems important at the moment. 

The way the door slams shut behind her feels a lot more final than it ever has before. 

When she gets out on the street, she realizes how late it is. Darkness has settled over the city, the sun long gone. It was already evening when they arrived in the city and Junhee has no idea how long has passed since then, but clearly it was longer than she thought. On a Sunday night like this, the neighbourhood is quiet, not a soul in sight. For that, she feels grateful. 

She picks a direction, and starts walking. 

And her mind, it sort of just shuts down. The guilt, the shame, the pain, they all get mixed together and cloud her thoughts until everything is just a ball of hurt and anger, directed at herself. How could she let this happen. Why is she a monster. How could she hurt them. Why did she have to be burdened with this curse of magic, when she never wanted it in the first place? Why did it have to be her, and not someone else? Someone else better capable of handling it. Someone who wouldn’t hurt others just because they’re weak like her. 

The blame, the hatred, the desperation. They’re soul crushing. Making amends with herself seems impossible, let alone with her partners. She knows that perhaps, had she done something less horrible, had she done something more ordinary and within the boundaries of the normal human body, maybe this could be forgotten. Signed off as an accident. Those happen, don’t they? Everyone has slipups. For as long as you do not purposefully raise your hand against your loved one… and Junhee didn’t. She didn’t mean for them to get hurt. Yet the scope of what she has done, it’s too huge.

Despite how weak she feels, how little strength she has left, somehow her body knows the way. She can’t get into the subway without her transit card, but her feet keep walking, one tedious step at a time. Towards the river, she realizes, when the haze of her thoughts clears up for a moment. Towards the closest body of water there is in this city. The sea is too far away, so the river will have to suffice. 

It keeps getting darker around her, and some people give her weird looks as they see her passing by. Junhee thinks that she must look like a complete mess, the makeup from the day probably smeared all around and her hair still partially wet. But no one stops her, no one asks her anything, and she just keeps walking, her whole body aching but somehow also burning with determination to get there. 

She doesn’t know what she will do once she makes it there, but it’s as good as any plan right now. 

It takes a long time for her to reach the river like this, but eventually she crosses over the highway, and descends back down to get to the park that follows along the northern bank of the river. The same park that her and her partners biked in, not so long ago- yet now it feels like a distant memory, almost too good to have ever existed at all. A dream she wishes she could hold onto even now. 

The water is beckoning her, but she has to walk a little further to find a spot to get to it. For the most part, the river has been walled off; the banks are artificially built, and there’s a fence protecting anyone from falling in. But there’s a small deck with boats there, bobbing along the waves, probably for rent in the day time for those who want to taste a bit of adventure and try rowing in the river. There are also some swan boats, for cute couples to do cute couple things in- and it hurts, hurts to think about what she could have already lost. 

There’s a small gate there too, blocking the way to the deck, but Junhee doesn’t need to get to the boats. All she needed was to get a little closer to the water. Again, it’s calling out to her, whispering to her, calling her name- inviting her in. Inviting her into its embrace. 

“Will you still carry me?” she whispers to it, watches the small ripples of waves pass by in the murky water. It’s so dark, the lights of the city around her reflecting off of the water like fake stars. “Will you still accept me, even though I’ve become a monster?” 

The water sighs, whispers something back she can’t quite understand, but it feels comforting. It feels like a promise. 

She feels as though she shouldn’t trust her powers anymore, not after what it did to her partners, not after how destructive it proved to be. But if everything has been lost… then what does it matter what happens to her now? 

A part of her knows she’s being too dramatic. She shouldn’t just assume that she has lost everything, yet the rational voice in her head is not heard in her heart. It doesn’t matter, what is realistic doesn’t matter- she’s so angry and disappointed at herself, so sad and feels so alone. And if she can’t imagine forgiving herself what she did, then how could she ever ask anyone else to forgive her either? 

She looks at the water, and again it tempts her, calls to her. Begs her. 

Junhee kicks off her shoes, it feels appropriate even if also silly, for she doesn’t take off her clothes as she slowly wades into the water. The rocks are hard on her feet, but soon she just leans forward, lets the water accept her weight, swallow her whole. And her body is enveloped inside the river, the water hugging her close, welcoming her home.  
It’s not the same overwhelming kind of sense of joy that she has felt with the ocean, but it’s similar. Just quieter, smaller, less intense. 

She opens her mouth, and just breathes. 

Instead of swimming, she just lets the current take her. She feels lost anyway, and at least the water knows where it’s going. What its purpose is. “Take me to the ocean,” she whispers, and lets her eyes close, just simply letting the water wash her away. 

There’s no sense of danger, no sense of this being wrong. She’s home, she’s home in the water, despite all that happened. It will always want her, she will always have it, no matter what happens- even if this is a curse, she somehow feels grateful to know this. That no matter where she goes, she’ll at least have her element. It betrayed her, but only because she betrayed it.

The shaman’s words ring in her head once more. She shouldn’t have fought it; her powers are for her to accept, no matter how painful it may be. If she bottles it up, it’s only her fault if something bad follows. She knew it, yet still let it happen. 

She failed her magic, her partners, everything she loves and cherishes. 

Yet still the water carries her, holds her, keeps her safe.

Junhee just watches the world pass by, as the river takes her towards the ocean. The tall buildings with their bright lights, the bridges crossing the river, the cars and subway trains on those bridges. Nothing has changed, even if her life has. No one knows about her, about what she did, about how her life has fallen into pieces. The world doesn’t care, doesn’t wish to know this about her- she’s nothing but a tiny human, and whatever happens to her, holds no meaning except to herself and those who love her. 

Her tears mix with the river, as though they never existed. 

The water never stops, but time seems to have paused. She has no idea how long it takes, before she can actually sense the ocean getting nearer; there’s just something to it, the same sense of belonging she experienced in Jeju. The river was already like a warm embrace, but as the sea grows nearer, she feels even more welcomed, her strength returning to her, her physical aches soothed and her magic slowly, slowly filling up again like it’s drinking from the ocean itself. She rolls over and instead of letting the water just carry her like a lifeless body, she swims, kicks her feet and stretches out her arms, wishing to get there sooner, quicker.

She dives down, to let the water fully submerge her, but also wishing not to be seen by anyone who might be near. No boats sail up the river anymore, the port built at the seaside and not in Seoul, but she doesn’t want to risk it. The murky waters hide her perfectly, and she does not need to come up for air. There’s just peace, the silence of the water drowning out even her own heavy thoughts, the voices in her head blaming her, yelling at her.

And finally, she’s home. The water dilutes, turns saltier only gradually but she can tell- this is the ocean, not the tamed Han river that has been bound by humans and strapped down to its artificial banks. This is the ocean, wild and breathing and untamed, and it welcomes her home like it always knew she’d come. 

Here, there’s nothing but her, and the breathing, moving, living presence of the ocean. Always changing, but always the same. Eternal, in many ways. And Junhee wonders, if the ocean could tell her… could tell her of all the people who’ve held this power before. Who have shared this connection in the past. 

If the ocean could take away her loneliness. It can’t take away her burden, but if it could erase just that… But the ocean remains silent. 

It’s so easy, to just float. To just exist. The water hugs her, caresses her skin, holds her dear. Here, she has nothing to fear. Everything is right- and she wonders if she could stay. Become one with the ocean, with the fish, become a real mermaid. Just swim, and sing underwater, live in the protection of her element. Here, she could do no harm to anyone. Her magic has a place here, not on land. 

The water plays with her hair, reminds her of how Chanmi would touch her. How she’d braid her long hair, or curl it for her, or help apply a hair mask on her long locks. Or of how Kyungsoo would sometimes brush her hair, when she was too exhausted and weak to hold up the brush for so long. How Kyungsoo’s hands would feel different from Chanmi’s, but they would both still feel right. 

Can I go back, Junhee asks the ocean. Can I still go back? Is there a way, to fix everything? Can there be forgiveness? My powers, they only destroy. Out there, they have no place, no use. I’m dangerous, to the ones I love. Can I go back? 

She remembers the shaman once more. Her words warning her against rejecting her powers, telling her that acceptance was the only way. The concrete example of the heavy price she would have to pay, if she tried to turn her back to her powers- the very vivid memory of how it felt, to be forced to pay her dues. But how can she accept it in a place where it doesn’t belong? 

The ocean laughs. It laughs, it dances around her, makes her dance along with it. Reminds her of the joy she felt when she first learned how to breathe underwater, of all the tricks she learned to amuse Chanmi and of the failed attempts at using her magic with household chores. Of how she could heal Kyungsoo when he was ill. The happiness she experienced as she mastered her power, played with it, explored it like a child explores the world. Without worries. 

But the innocence has been lost. She’s no child anymore- and her carelessness was punished, severely, even if it wasn’t her fingers that were burnt but someone else’s flesh. Someone else had to be hurt and injured, for her to see how foolish she had been.

And the ocean kisses her cheeks, her wrists, her stomach, her knees. She has only ever learned after falling down, hasn’t she? Junhee has always had to stumble and fall to finally pause and see the reality around her. She’s always needed the screeching halt in order to change directions. She’s blind like that, wrapped up in her own thoughts and worries and ignorant to the truth right under her nose. 

She didn’t agree to seek help for her eating disorder until she was too weak to carry on. She didn’t tell her partners about her eating disorder until she had no choice but to do that. She never shares her burdens with anyone until they become too heavy for her to bear. 

This is no different. 

And who has always been there, to lift her up and to show her the way? Who has always taken her hand, and given her the strength to do better? Has it not been Kyungsoo, has it not been Chanmi? 

Why should they give up on her now? 

Isn’t she the one who’s given up? 

No, Junhee thinks, no, I’m not giving up. I just… I don’t want them to feel forced to forgive. To stay. I don’t want to put them through more pain, more suffering. They’ve already done so much. I have to protect them, from myself. Even if it’s painful, I have no choice. They don’t deserve a monster like me to ruin their lives even more. 

But there’s only silence. Her thoughts, they ring in her head, over and over again, growing heavier… until there’s the smallest, quietest question. 

Aren’t those just excuses to protect yourself? 

And at first, she can only fight it. Try and deny it. No, it’s not excuses- no, it’s not her being selfish! She’s not running away, she’s not giving up, she’s just doing the right thing… the right thing…

But how is it right to not allow Kyungsoo and Chanmi to even choose, if they want to forgive? If they want her to stay?

What if they’re hurting right now, worried about her? Looking for her? And maybe they find her shoes, at the river bank, and assume the worst to have happened? How is that not selfish. Junhee. You’re selfish. 

But Chanmi told Kyungsoo to let me go, she whispers, closing her eyes. She said he should let me go.

Because she knew you wanted to go. Because she knew you wanted to run.

And Junhee knows in her heart for that to be true.

I need to go back, she whispers to the sea. I have to go back, and stop hurting them. Stop being selfish, for once.

That’s right, the ocean replies. But first, rest. Rest here, my child, until you’re strong enough. 

It’s so easy to agree, so easy to… understand with her heart and see the truth so clearly, when it’s the ocean talking to her, through her. She had no idea that this could happen, that she could have this strong of a connection, but since this is where her powers come from, and her powers are such an integral part of her now, it sort of makes sense. Regardless, she’s too tired to question it much- but she understands that her running away isn’t right. She needs to go back, she needs to give her partners a chance to decide for themselves what they want.

If they want to forgive, or if they don’t. 

Even if it’s a no, Junhee will have to accept it. 

But first, she closes her eyes and lets the ocean take care of her. Whether she sleeps or not, she isn’t sure- but when she wakes up, blinks her eyes open, she’s washed up to the shore, the water splashing over her feet as it comes and goes in waves, sand in her hair and the first burst of sun shine visible over the horizon. 

She sits up, and all of her aches are gone. All the weakness and pain she felt after she used all of her magic, it has now been healed. The ocean patched her up and brought her back, safe and sound, although to where? She looks around, and spots the shipyards of Incheon to her left, far away but still obviously there. So she was brought all the way here… 

Perhaps for a reason. 

Junhee stands up, and carefully dries out her clothes and hair, using her magic. It comes to her so naturally, so harmlessly, innocently- like it has never done her anything wrong. And she understands now a bit better that it isn’t evil and it isn’t good, just how her body isn’t evil and isn’t good. It just is, and what she chooses to do with it, that depends on her.

She braids her hair and starts walking, bare footed on the wet sand, heading towards the town. She will have to make her way to Seoul somehow, and without money or a phone it’s going to be a bit hard- but first, she has to make a visit to a certain someone here, who has been in her thoughts a lot ever since the catastrophe happened in the first place.

The sun emerges completely by the time she reaches town, and she doesn’t know Incheon well enough to make her way around like this. A couple of confused elderly ladies are able to point her to the right direction, although they scold her sincerely for not wearing shoes and Junhee can only offer them a flustered smile in a way of explanation. There’s not much to be said about it- they probably think she’s been out drinking, and lost her shoes along the way.

Thankfully it’s still early, and so there aren’t too many people outside yet to see her walk through the streets like this, dressed so haphazardly and bare footed. She has to sometimes stop and ask shopkeepers or restaurant owners for instructions about where to go, but makes sure not to linger too long so they can’t start asking questions. One old lady gives her a roll of kimbap, insisting that she should take it, and Junhee has hardly ever felt so grateful for food in her life. Encouraged, she keeps walking forward. 

This kind of feels like pilgrimage, in an odd way. Like this kind of arduous journey is happening for a reason- her with nothing left, penniless and lost, walking and walking towards her destination. There’s something almost poetic about it, and it feels almost cleansing in a way. The ocean washed her clean, and now she has to complete this trip to finish the ritual. 

She’s never been religious, yet that’s how it feels like. 

Eventually, after what feels both like days and like mere minutes, she finds herself at the doorstep of the shaman. It’s still quite early, but she knocks anyway. At first no one answers, but then, she can hear footsteps nearing the door and the apprentice she met on her visit opens the door with a curious look on her face. 

“Is it alright if… If I talk to the shaman for a moment?” Junhee asks, bowing down deep as a sign of respect. “I know I didn’t call, or set up an appointment- but a lot of unexpected things have happened to me over the past 12 hours.” 

“Come in.” The apprentice turns around, and walks back inside. Junhee follows her, although she doesn’t dare step into the room much further, too scared of trailing dirt everywhere with her dirty feet. 

Nothing has changed in the room, although it seems like they have done a ritual recently; there are fresh flowers still placed in vases in the room that Junhee doesn’t remember seeing previously. But everything else has remained the same; the images, the decorations, the instruments, the scent of burnt candles. 

Junhee can hear the two women talk, before the shaman appears from the back like she did before. She doesn’t seem too surprised or confused to see Junhee return, even in her current state. 

“You wished to speak with me.” 

Junhee nods quietly. “Yes, and I apologize for coming in so suddenly. It’s just… a lot of things happened. You were right. Suppressing my magic was a mistake.” 

The shaman nods, doesn’t seem surprised by this either. Perhaps she expected Junhee to be foolish enough to let this happen. Perhaps it’s something most rookies have to go through- although she did claim she didn’t know much about her magic when she first came here. 

The shaman sits down at the low table, moving stiffly, and the apprentice hurries in with the same teapot as before. But Junhee remains at the doorway.

“I… I spoke with the ocean,” she says carefully, measuring her words. “It spoke to me, and I spoke back. It… taught me many things. Made me see how stupid I have been. Is that… Is it quite usual? To speak with something… of that nature.” 

That makes the shaman laugh, all of her many wrinkles bunching up as she laughs heartily, shaking her head. “You can speak with all kinds of things, when you have the ears to listen and the mouth to speak,” she answers. “I’ve spoken with mountains, with the sky, with fields, with winds. Why couldn’t you speak to the ocean, when you command its waters?” 

Junhee nods. That makes sense. It feels good to have someone confirm her experience- that there is someone, out there, who understands what she’s been through. What she experienced last night, at her moment of weakness and despair.

That she came through it with the help of something so much bigger than her, than any human being. 

“Did you have more questions?” the shaman asks, not even looking at her as she sips on the tea. “You stand in the doorway like an unwelcome guest, or someone itching to leave someplace else. Which one is it?” 

That brings a smile to Junhee’s face. The shaman is humorous, even if in a weird way. “I guess both,” she responds with. So, I must hurry then. I fear that it’s going to take me a long while to make it to Seoul… I wasn’t prepared to wash up to shore all the way here.” 

The shaman and her apprentice share a look, and the younger woman gets up on her feet and comes towards Junhee. She doesn’t say a word, doesn’t even look her in the eye, but she pulls something out of her pocket and presses it into Junhee’s hand. A couple of crumpled up 5,000 won notes- it’s enough to get her to Seoul, maybe even buy her a pair of flipflops on the way.

“Thank you so much,” Junhee murmurs, squeezing the woman’s hand in hers. “Thank you both, for… helping me find the way. I don’t know if I’ll come back, but you are both in my thoughts.” 

“Then the sea should be kind to us,” the shaman muses, the apprentice withdrawing away from Junhee. “Since its daughter is blessing us with her kind thoughts. Now hurry and go. You’re needed elsewhere.” 

Junhee bows to them both, and slips back outside, back into the real, bright world. 

And she does hurry home. She only stops to buy herself a pair of cheap flipflops as she passes by a store, and then rushes to a bus stop. The route home is at least familiar from here, and although people are still staring at her, she pays them no mind. It’s been bizarre 24 hours for her, yet there’s a sense of inner peace she hasn’t felt since this whole thing started; the storm has passed, and while it left chaos behind it, she knows now that she can rise above it. She will do her best to repair what has been broken, and learn to control her storm. Control it, not suppress it- because those two are not the same. 

It’s well past noon by the time she makes it to her home neighborhood. She should actually be at work by now, she realizes, but somehow that doesn’t worry her so much. It doesn’t seem important, not in this moment; her thoughts are fully on Kyungsoo and Chanmi, and what she wants to say to them when she finally sees them. They might not be home since they both have work as well, but once they get home… Junhee still doesn’t know if they’ll forgive her, but she knows that she cannot run. She can’t keep being selfish. 

The ocean brought her back, so she could finally make things right. 

But when she opens the door to the apartment, it isn’t empty. Both Chanmi and Kyungsoo jump up from the couch and rush towards her as she walks through the door, Chanmi getting to her first and wrapping her arms around her fiercely, hugging her so tight that it almost stops her from breathing, just holding her and lifting her up so that Junhee is on her tippy toes, swaying her from side to side. And then Kyungsoo is there, his warmth and his weight against Junhee’s back, his neck buried in her neck and shoulder, his arms going around her and around Chanmi to hold them both.

Junhee can only wrap her arms around Chanmi’s shoulders, tilt her head to the side to press her cheek against Kyungsoo’s, and just let them have her. Let them hold her, like this, all three of them, like nothing else matters.

In a way, this feels like the Jeju incident all over again. How Kyungsoo dragged her out of the water, thinking she might be dead, and how they held her afterwards, how long it took to convince them that she was going to be alright. This feels a lot like that- but this is more painful. This is not just a scare, not an accident, but pain they’ve all felt and had to endure for too long.

The ocean was right. She’s been so selfish. But she’ll never be selfish again. 

She can feel Chanmi’s tears against her bare skin, Kyungsoo’s too. Junhee bites her lip, as not to say anything; she doesn’t want to try and usher those tears away too soon with her words. She’ll let them cry, she’ll let them be sad. Feel what they have to. She thought she’d lessen their pain by going away, and she’ll be here for them now that she’s returned. Brought back by the ocean, to be a better person, a better partner. 

She’s learned a lot. 

“Why didn’t you come back,” Kyungsoo whispers, his voice choked up. It really startles Junhee, to have him be the first one to break down like this, to show vulnerability so openly instead of trying to stand strong for his girls. “Why didn’t you come back to us, noona? Why didn’t you return? I was so scared, I was so afraid, I didn’t know what to do… I’ve never been so scared…” 

Junhee lets go of Chanmi’s shoulders with one hand to reach back, even though all she can do is cradle the back of Kyungsoo’s head in her palm. “I’m sorry,” she says quietly, feeling how Kyungsoo squeezes her tighter. “A lot happened, I didn’t mean to be gone for so long. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry I made you worry, that I made you afraid. I did wrong.” 

“Eonni,” Chanmi sobs against her shoulder, pressing closer, almost pushing Junhee over with how she wants to get nearer to her. “I’m sorry I said- that I said to Kyungsoo- that you should just go- I didn’t mean it, I didn’t mean that you couldn’t come back, please don’t leave us again, please don’t go. Please…” 

“I won’t, I never will,” Junhee sooths her quietly, hugging her tighter. “I never will do that again. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been gone so long… I didn’t do it to punish you, I promise, I didn’t do it to hurt you or to upset you. I promise…” 

It’s with much difficulty that they make it to the bedroom, with Junhee’s coaxing. They can’t just stand there in the living room like this, crying and clinging onto each other. It’s much more comfortable in bed, to lie next to each other and have her lovers curl around her, hold onto her under the covers where they all feel more protected from the world. Junhee wishes she had four arms, to properly hold both of them, but this has to be enough. She has to be enough, as she is- her flaws, her limitations and all. 

It’s only after they’ve all calmed down a little that she can finally explain what happened. She’s a bit afraid to share it in detail because she worries it will sound more intentional than it was, but they deserve the truth. “I went to the river,” she says softly, stroking Chanmi’s hair and rubbing her thumb across Kyungsoo’s palm in soothing circles. “The water called to me, I guess. I felt so weak and lost, but the water called out to me. Perhaps it knew that I needed guidance. And the river took me to the ocean, because that’s where my powers are the strongest. Where I truly belong, I guess. The river took me home, to gain strength… to gain wisdom.” 

But she does omit the part about talking with the ocean. It feels too private to share- too intimate of an experience. She doesn’t even know how she would explain it, when it all happened wordlessly, silently, like telepathy- she’s not sure that sort of experience could be understood by outsiders. But she tells the rest; how she was washed up to the shore after she regained her strength, how she visited the shaman again, and then made her way home.

“And I’m sorry I ran away from you,” she says. It’s not easy to admit all her mistakes so openly, but at the same time, it feels like it’s cleansing her soul. She knows she did wrong, and admitting it out loud is only a blow to her ego. But she doesn’t want her pride to stand in the way of rescuing her relationship. “I was selfish. I didn’t want to give you a chance to hurt me with your words… I didn’t want to take the risk of being hurt by you. I took the easy way out and ran, when I was scared you wouldn’t forgive me, wouldn’t want me anymore. It seemed easier that way, to not have to hear it. I’m sorry I was only trying to protect myself.”

Chanmi tries to say something, but Junhee hushes her gently. She wants it all out in the open now- no more hiding, no more shying away. 

“And I’m sorry I hurt you,” she says, tears rolling down her cheeks and the bridge of her nose as she blinks. “I’m so sorry that I let that happen. I knew I wasn’t supposed to suppress my magic, yet I did it- I’m sorry. I made such a stupid mistake. I knew better than that… But I still let it happen. I take full responsibility. And I…” She has to pause, take in a deep breath. “And I understand if you cannot forgive me. If you’re scared of me. You don’t have to believe me… when I promise it won’t happen again. You don’t have to forgive me, you don’t have to move on. It’s alright… it’s alright if we have to break up.” 

The moment of silence feels suffocating, like Junhee can’t breathe right, until Chanmi shakes her head where she has her face buried against Junhee’s bosom. “You didn’t hurt us on purpose,” she whispers, “you didn’t mean for that to happen. I was shaken up when it first happened… and I guess a little bit scared. I didn’t understand what happened, but I think I do now. You lost control, it had been bottled up for too long- you didn’t mean for us to get hurt. I forgive you. For everything.” 

“My sweet, soft Chanmi,” Junhee murmurs into her hair, pressing kisses there. “The brevity of your love, I don’t deserve it… your kindness and trust, I don’t deserve any of it. Thank you… thank you.”

She can feel how Chanmi’s sobs shake her as she curls against Junhee, but she can hear her whisper her confessions of love, murmur them into her skin, fingers curling into the fabric of her shirt to hold her there. Chanmi hurts, but she will also heal; she just needs this moment here, and she’ll be alright.

But there’s still Kyungsoo. 

“Thank you for trying to rescue me from my own storm,” Junhee whispers, turning her head although she can’t really see Kyungsoo from this angle. “Thank you for always protecting me. I’m sorry that this time, I truly hurt you. I’m so sorry, and I will do everything I can so it never happens again. If you forgive me, if you choose to stay with me… and if it does happen again, I want you to not play a hero. Just let it happen. I don’t want you to get hurt ever again. I don’t want you to sacrifice yourself for me any longer.” 

Kyungsoo lifts up his head, to make eye contact with Junhee. His eyes are swollen and glimmering with tears, but flashes Junhee a slight smile before pressing his nose into her soft cheek, breathing her in. “It has never been a sacrifice to take care of you,” he whispers, and Junhee can feel the tremors going through his body. She’s never witnessed him crying quite like this, but she’s grateful that he allows her to witness this now. “But I understand. I won’t do anything stupid. I promise I won’t. And of course I forgive you- I am more upset that you left us for so long, than I’m upset about what happened. We understand now that it wasn’t your fault. You didn’t mean for it to happen- and we just have to figure out a solution to it, so that we don’t get a repeat of it either.”

“I’m sorry,” Junhee whispers back, but Kyungsoo silences her with a kiss, his lips firm and warm, forcing her to take back her words, forcing her to just feel. Just feel how much he loves her, how much he doesn’t care about her mistakes.

That it has all been forgiven.

Junhee knows that forgiveness is only the first step forward in mixing this mess, but it’s all she needs.

*****

Junhee ends up quitting her job at the eyewear store. The owners are sad to see her go, but Junhee is adamant about it. She knows that she cannot stay there- she needs a different environment, to make sure her magic doesn’t burst out of her when she’s unable to use it while she’s at work. It’s a scary leap into the dark, to make such a drastic career decision, but she talked it through with her partners and they all agreed that it was the right thing to do. For Junhee’s safety, and for others’. 

Her magic has brought many new obstacles into her life, but she believes now that there’s a purpose to it all. The ocean has given her a home, a place she belongs, but also tremendous wisdom she would have never found otherwise. Her powers are not a curse- but only if she treats them as a blessing. 

Figuring out an alternative career wasn’t easy, but eventually the realization just comes to her. She’s manipulated plants in the past, made them grow successfully- so why not work in a flower shop, and grow all the plants that she wants? 

“Why not own a flower shop, instead?” Kyungsoo says when Junhee proposes the idea over dinner. “Why not just get one of your own, so you can just let your magic free whenever? You’ll grow the most beautiful flowers in the city, it’ll be your own little magical rainforest.” 

Chanmi claps her hands excitedly. “We’ll make it so pretty!” she exclaims. “It’ll be so whimsical and so pretty, you will get famous and everyone will come to your little shop to see it for themselves!” 

“But… I don’t have the money for that,” Junhee points out. “I can’t afford to do that…” 

“You forget that your boyfriend knows everything about business loans,” Kyungsoo says with a sly look on his face. “Don’t worry, we’ll get it all sorted out for you in no time.” 

And that’s how it all happens- in a frenzy of crazy ideas and meticulous planning, from choosing the right location to going through the loan application process. But Kyungsoo was right, his expertise comes in handy, and Junhee gets herself a very good deal on it all, insurances and everything.

It feels surreal, but it all becomes reality, bit by bit, her very own flower shop shaping up exactly how she planned it with the added flare of Chanmi’s creativity and excited energy. 

It’s such a stupid idea, when she knows next to nothing about flowers, but her powers really do take care of it all for her. She can make anything flourish with her magic, regardless of what kind of plant it is; it’s like the flowers speak her language, growing as she wants them to, shaping up under her fingertips. And it feels so right, to work with her magic, simply let it flow freely through her and into her surroundings, let it feed life like it feeds life within her.

“Thank you,” she whispers to Kyungsoo and Chanmi on the opening night, all of their friends gathered around to celebrate and even some curious customers mingling in. The space really does look like a rainforest with its many exotic flowers and luscious greens, vines decorating even the walls. “Thank you so much… I couldn’t have done this without you.” 

“Anything to make you happy,” Kyungsoo replies, squeezing her closer. Chanmi presses her cheek to Junhee’s, and Junhee can feel her smile against her skin. “Anything to make you bloom like this.” 

For the first time in her life, Junhee really feels like she’s living up to her fullest potential. Free from her eating disorder, free from the fear her magic first caused her- finally herself, free and happy. Just a short while ago, she would have never thought this possible. 

“I can bloom, because you’re the sun that nourishes me and the soil that grounds me,” she says, and all of them break out in fond giggles at her cheesiness. 

But she did really mean it, and she knows that her partners know it too, now more than ever. They’ve been through so much- and Junhee knows now that there’s nothing their love cannot push through.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing this fic has been quite the journey. I've never done modern magical realism before and it was a bit of a challenge, but I hope I did an okay job. I know that this fic hasn't been a huge success as far as views and things go, but that hasn't bothered me too much. This story felt important for me to write, and I've enjoyed every bit of it. Thank you to those who made it this far and gave this odd story a change, it's meant so much to me.


End file.
